Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

That’s certainly what I’m hearing, and this review is more of the same...

Caught a critic's screening in Hollywood last night.

Well it ain't quite "Gigli 2" but...

Ben Affeck's and action maestro John Woo's (the abomination that was "Windtalkers") duel comeback project "Paycheck" desperately, desperately wants to be thought of as the "Total Recall" for the new millenium. Unfortunately, this Phillip K. Dick ("Blade Runner", "Minority Report" and the little seen "Imposter") adaptation is not "Recall", sharing more in commen with another of the Governator's movies, the ill conceived, ill fated "6th Day", genetically spliced with the leavings from the far superior (though still flawed) "Report".

The "B in Bennifer" takes on the role of Michael Jennings, a Hitchcockian everyman whose specialty and vocation is "reverse engineering" and improving pretty much any electronic device. Taking place in a "present" and "near future" (2007 to be exact, as listed on one of Jenning contracts) apparently created from a "Design Within Reach" catalog and some cheesy looking vacuformed "plasti-metal" props slapped onto "techie-future" looking locations (as opposed to "6th Day"s cheezy vacuformed props in a world of "Pottery Barn" & some of the same "techie-future" looking Vancouver locations), Jennings works in the gray area of corporate rips off, toiling in isolation for brief (weeks or months) periods and then having the memory of all his work erased once the project is done and he's received his paycheck.

When his "friend", corporate master of the universe Rethrick, played with one dimensional, moustache twirling glee by the overqualified Aaron Eckhart, offers "8 figures for a three YEAR job", Jennings accepts, despite some misgivings about the long period of memory loss involved and his attraction with a beautiful employee of Rethrick's, played in a thankless role by Uma Thurman.

A couple of eyeblinks and some smash cut editing later, the job is done, Jennings' memory is wiped and he's $90 million richer. but also missing his memories of the 3 year relationship he's had with Thurman's Rachel.

When Jennings goes to cash his paycheck, he's shocked to discover he has no money and has apparently divested the assets himself several weeks before his memory wipe. All that's left for him is an envelope containing 20 everyday, seemingly disconnected items. Before you can say "man on the run" (a theme shared by all of Dick's Hollywood adaptations), Rethrick's bad guys are trying to kill him, the FBI is after him and Jennings is racing to unravel what happened to him in those 3 years.

What could have been a sharp, exciting mediation of the nature of memory and reality quickly turns into a routine actioner (and extremely tame, even boring action considering Woo's resume) with one of the silliest Macguffins in recent memory: a "time viewer", a machine reverse engineered by Jennings to view the future (kind of like "Report's" precogs without the human dimension).

Jennings, "time viewing" before his memory wipe, left the 20 objects for himself. Like some twisted Rube Goldberg plot device, the objects allow his memory wiped self to get out of life threatening jams, Macgyver-like, by reaching into his rumpled manilla envelope at the right moment for the right object. Not only is this plotting silly, it drains any sense of jeopardy for the character and it soon just becomes a "what's he going to use next" gimmick.

The time viewer, as depicted here, is itself just a lazy plot device. It shows events at a global scale, years in advance but also shows individual's their immediate future, sometimes mere SECONDS before it happens, depending on the plot requirements at that particular point in the rickety narrative. And how come the "Paycheck" world seems to be very grounded in the present (albeit a sleeked up one) but the all gizmos that Jennings reverse engineers would be more at home in a "Star Trek" show? The "suspension" needle on the disbelief scale snapped off about halfway through the movie on this point.

Affleck's character is a blank, with no arc, passions (aside from Rachel) or flaws. All slicked out in narrow lapelled suits, he looks every inch like he's channelling Hitchcock era Cary Grant, but then he opens his mouth and Benny's whiny, high pitched, frat boy voice spoils the illusion. Incongruously, he's also an expert in asian staff fighting (?), which he puts to adequete use against the bad guys. His other hidden talents include secret agent level unarmed fighting techniques and driving skills, for whatever reason. Not bad for a isolated, memory addled "lab rat".

Thurman comes across even worse. A biologist (of what we never learn) at Rethrick's company, she works in a lab that looks like a massive arboritum crossed with a cheap soundstage set, growing, I think, hydroponic flowers (huh?). She's also has created a full "perfect storm" indoor weather system for the arboritum, up to and including gale force winds (why would the flowers need gale force winds anyway?), which figure laughably into an action sequence also involving the most delicate use of robotic waldos every put to film.

Paul Giamatti drops in for a couple of scenes as Jennings' buddy and "memory tech/eraser guy". The role is a walking plot device, designed to throw in some comic relief or to have an "expository dialogue" conversation with Jennings. Giamatti does his usual pro job in a pure money gig.

Directorially, Woo seems to be coasting here, though a couple of his action trademarks do turns up, almost as unintentional parodies of themselves. Those looking for Chow Yun-Fat era business (or even "Face/Off or "MI:2 kinetics) will be severely disapointed.

Overall. the movie plays like one of those "Sci Fi Channel original" cheezeball "B" movies with better effects, (ever so slightly cooler) action, and Affleck filling in the Dean Cain or David Keith role.

Come Christmas Day, stay home with the family, watch the DVD of "Blade Runner" or go see "Cold Mountain". Best to skip this bad Christmas turkey until it's on cable where it belongs.

Why, Hollywood, do you hate PK Dick so much? Why do you keep rolling him over and lubing him up? He wrote some great stuff, and the sooner you figure out that you don’t always have to turn it into the same shitty man-on-the-run film with a grafted on high concept, the sooner we might get some classics out of his work.

"Moriarty" out.