Friday - Movies

The Age

Thursday October 9, 2008

Craig Mathieson

Paycheck (2003)

Channel Nine, 8.30pm

In an amazingly dire run of movies - 2000's Mission: Impossible II, 2002's Windtalkers and the following year's Paycheck - John Woo basically managed to erase any prestige, respect and artistic legacy he may have previously enjoyed. Paycheck may well be the saddest for the three, for the first two at least came with the stamp, however faded, of a John Woo film, picking up on the themes and shooting style that he'd developed in Hong Kong. Paycheck was simply that most malleable of products - a Ben Affleck thriller. No shortage of directors could have made this and it's almost galling that Woo so comprehensively failed to influence the boilerplate mechanics. Affleck plays an electronic engineer whose employer wipes his memory after a successful three-year-long project. Everyday objects he's provided for himself in advance - and a dutiful UmaThurman - are his only clues to figuring out what he created before his employer has him killed. The standard slow-motion Woo gunplay is in effect.

The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Channel Ten, 8.30pm

See Movie of the week, page 33 -- CRAIG MATHIESON

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