Paycheck

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * *)

Ben Affleck's apparent mission to make a bad movie in every genre continues.

This time it's sci-fi - yet another adaptation from the works of Philip K. Dick, this one undoubtedly sprung on the heels of the Cruise-Spielberg Minority Report.

Like that film, this one deals with memory, the future and computer technology which requires you to stand up and wave your hands in the air to operate.

Why? Because when leading men play futuristic computer buffs, getting them to do interactive tai chi looks way cooler than making them sit down and type.

Anyway, in the not-so-distant future Affleck is a whiz-kid computer reverse-engineer, Michael Jennings, a hired gun for cyber-corporations who get him in to copy their competitors' latest developments, improve them, then pass them off as original.

Then in a harsh application of restraint-of-trade clauses in this contract he gets his memory zapped so he can't do the same for the next company. Quite how he builds up on-the-job experience or gets any better at what he does isn't clear.

But such is his professional life where his only last memories are his frequent holidays. He gets an offer he can't refuse from bigwig Aaron Eckhart on a three-year project in a lock-down facility before getting those neurons scrubbed.

It could be worse - Uma Thurman's fellow genius is working in the biosphere down the hall. He does high-end physics, she does biology - no wonder there's no room for any chemistry between them.

Then suddenly, it's three years later. He doesn't seem to have been paid for his troubles on whatever it was, all he has to show for it is an envelope full of seemingly incongruous objects and an emptiness in his heart for whatshername.

Or that could be Affleck realising: "Uh-oh. I've got myself into another crap movie."

And soon he's being chased by the FBI.

Enough plot. What' s bad about Paycheck isn't just Affleck's character, though he's at his wooden best, especially the way his contemplation of that big offer versus three years of memories amounts to a shrug. Even Arnie's guy did better than that in the Dick-inspired Total Recall.

But as the chase continues, it soon gets deadly dull to watch Jennings figure his way past his forced and foreseen amnesia. If it set out to be a louder, dumber movie its many lapses in logic might be forgivable and it might be a lot more fun.

But the action is disappointingly dull, despite coming from Hong Kong-gone-Hollywood director John Woo who seems to have slid into self-parody.

This undoubtedly paid him and Affleck well but it does neither of them any credit. And afterwards Paycheck will still owe you for two hours of mediocrity.

Cast: Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart

Director: John Woo

Rating: M (low level violence)

Running time: 119 mins

Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley