{"id":5865,"date":"2004-06-23T13:54:00","date_gmt":"2004-06-23T17:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/?p=5865"},"modified":"2022-10-26T18:10:32","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T22:10:32","slug":"john-woos-paycheck-isnt-fun-weird-or-subversive-enough-for-a-philip-k-dick-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/john-woos-paycheck-isnt-fun-weird-or-subversive-enough-for-a-philip-k-dick-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"John Woo’s Paycheck isn’t fun, weird, or subversive enough for a Philip K. Dick tale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When it comes to action cinema maestros like John Woo — I can enjoy the the hyped-up action and weirdness of something like Face\/Off<\/em>, but find that the extreme violence and gunplay can sometimes cross the line from escapism into being inhumane. Paycheck<\/em>, scoring a mere PG-13 from the MPAA, is less violent than most of Woo’s others, but also unfortunately less weird or even fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s also not as smart or subversive as a Philip K. Dick adaptation ought to be. I think Minority Report<\/em> is the first so far to capture what made Dick’s tales so timeless and relevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uma Thurman<\/a>, following her star turn as the Kung-Fu action cinema goddess in Kill Bill<\/em>, plays backup love interest to Ben Affleck, who himself is no great shakes here. He was funny and self-deprecating when recently hosting Saturday Night Live<\/em>, if a little juvenile. His 90’s goatee-wearing, ironic geek guy in Chasing Amy<\/a><\/em> was actually quite realistic. Even his Daredevil hinted at the suffering and isolation in the midst of all the superhero silliness (there’s a chilling scene where we see him return home after a night of crime-busting, where he painfully strips off his protective uniform to reveal more than a few bruises and scars, and then blithely chews a handful of pain-killers straight). But he doesn’t read as a convincing engineer in Paycheck<\/em>, and his good looks and physique directly contradict dialog in the film that describes him as just a regular guy, and not a secret agent action hero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to action cinema maestros like John Woo — I can enjoy the the hyped-up action and weirdness of something like Face\/Off, but find that the extreme violence and gunplay can sometimes cross the line from escapism into being inhumane. Paycheck, scoring a mere PG-13 from the MPAA, is less violent than most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,2],"tags":[1673,35,1132,1999,2000,85,914],"class_list":["post-5865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2-stars","category-movies","tag-1673","tag-action","tag-ben-affleck","tag-john-woo","tag-philip-k-dick","tag-science-fiction","tag-uma-thurman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-1wB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4440,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-future-is-a-tasteful-monochrome-anon\/","url_meta":{"origin":5865,"position":0},"title":"The Future is a Tasteful Monochrome: Anon","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Andrea Niccol's Netflix exclusive Anon is a rather quaint throwback to the techno-paranoia cyberpunk genre, once common in the late nineties -- remember Virtuosity, Johnny Mnemonic, and Paycheck? The ultimate modern incarnation of is of course the BBC series Black Mirror, which out-Philip-K.-Dicked Philip K. Dick., and set a newly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Amanda Seyfried in Anon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/anon.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/anon.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/anon.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/anon.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/anon.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":931,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-adventures-of-baron-munchausen\/","url_meta":{"origin":5865,"position":1},"title":"Terry Gilliam throws the budget overboard in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Terry Gilliam's mad, brilliant yarn The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a strongly anti-war fable to which every kid (and adult!) ought to be exposed. 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Ben Affleck! Anna Kendrick!\" Director Gavin O\u2019Connor's The Accountant flirts with righteous anger at big business financial corruption, but wimps out by ultimately fingering a single venal individual with a hired army of faceless mercenaries. 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As with their breakthrough The Matrix (1999), there's the strong feeling that you're seeing something new; not just emergent technologies but a whole new style of moviemaking. But the bad news is that it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Speed Racer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1153,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/dark-city\/","url_meta":{"origin":5865,"position":4},"title":"Into the never-ending night of Alex Proyas’ Dark City","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"September 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I recall Dark City being one of my favorite films of 1998, and I would have rated it quite highly had I been keeping score at the time. It is a bold science fiction film noir most obviously indebted to Blade Runner, but also to favorites Brazil (especially the sequences\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/dark-city-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4311,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/exhaustively-exhausted-live-by-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":5865,"position":5},"title":"Exhaustively exhausted: Ben Affleck’s Live by Night","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Has any topic been more exhaustively dramatized than Prohibition-era gangsters? 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