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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Paycheck: John Woo vs PKD

20:07 / 19.12.03

Like it says, I thought I'd flag this because some of y'all might be vaguely interesting.

The trailer for Paycheck, starring Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhart and Uma Thurman, bringing together an original story by Philip K Dick, a probably terrible adapation, and the subtle directorial ability of... John Woo.

You heard me right. After MI2, any respect I had for Woo is rapidly fading, but is he going to pull it back with this? Will anyone like it? And when will he learn: enough with the motorcycle chases already? Answers on a postcard, please.

(Incidentally, I feel the advertising strap "from the writer of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the director of A Better Tomorrow, whilst better, wouldn't have gone down so well, nor fitted on the poster).

00:28 / 20.12.03

yeah, im not really that psyched, ill go see it, but i really hope they come through and make a scanner darkly.

20:58 / 22.12.03

Last I heard of "Scanner..." rights was belonging to clooney and soderbergh , and given confessionss of a dangerous mind, I think they , if anyone in HWd can do it, so all power to them...,

But woodentop dd murderer noooooooo...., and gun porn man, fatal combo....

05:46 / 14.01.04

So, has anyone bothered to see this?

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

07:58 / 14.01.04

I loved John Woo right up until he went to America and I like PKD, I'm going to see this on Friday but I know it's going to be shit. I don't even hate Ben Affleck I just know that if he's in a film not directed by Kevin Smith it's going to be shit, except Phantoms mind.

nedrichards is confused

09:30 / 14.01.04

Slight OT ness but the problem with 'Scanner...' that I ehar is that they've moved away from Charlie Kaufmans *amazing* script (which you can read here) although it may still end up being very good but I can't see how anything could top that script.

09:52 / 14.01.04

Good God this film sounds like it sucks.

If these films carry on, the whole world's gonna end up thinking Philip K. Dick wrote shitty techno-thrillers in which square-jawed secret agent types lose their memories or whatever it is this time and fight back by blowing shit up and confronting villians and such like.. absolute bollocks..

09:58 / 14.01.04

I went to see this a couple of weeks ago, and was braced for the worst- all that i knew of it beforehand was it's title and that it starred Affleck (I was envisaging some fairly standard action or climax sequences with lines like "I'm cashing your check buddy" being delivered as bad guys were despatched - that kind of thing).

Err- "SPOILER ALERT"

But my expectations were raised quite early on- it seemd pretty interesting, with decent visual effects. And most of it is pretty good - it keeps your interest.
I thought it really degenerated towards the end, into fairly unoriginal action-sequence territory, like a motorbike chase on an industrial site. The focus moves away from the interesting sci-fi elements onto the romantic relationship between Affleck and Thurman. And the end of the film is just terrible and actually fucks with the whole premise of the film. It also makes you wonder whether or not lots of films are now succumbing to that disease of having no money left for decent special effects after they've paid for the stars. The final sequence has Affleck and Thurman abseiling down what appears to be a large polythene shower curtain, to make their escape.
But yeah- definintely worth seeing, although it's not up to Minority Report or any of the others.

10:37 / 14.01.04

Erm... Riz? Total Recall?

18:53 / 18.01.04

I heard Linklater is directing A Scanner Darkly.