Based on a short story written by Dick in 1953, Paycheck addresses the author's abiding fascination with groundbreaking technology and the problems such advances pose for humanity when things go awry. As a writer, Dick was quite philosophical about our reliance on machines and this film explores that idea, which is helped along by a few action sequences from director John Woo.

Set on Earth in the near future, Paycheck tells the story of Michael Jennings (Affleck), a computer engineer employed by corporations to steal other companies' ideas, improve on them, and reintroduce them to the market as new. The company then arranges for his memory of the time he's spent developing the product to be erased. Hence, he effectively 'loses' periods of his life in return for the substantial pay cheques referred to in the title. When an old friend (Aaron Eckhart) from Allcom Corporation offers him a job rich enough to retire on, Jennings can't refuse, and here his troubles begin.

He dutifully spends some three years working on the project, which he expects will ensure his future. When Jennings awakens from memory erasure after the conclusion of the project, however, he is shocked to discover that he has apparently exchanged his multi-million-dollar wage for an envelope containing unfamiliar, apparently unrelated and insignificant objects.

As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that each object is a clue that leads Jennings closer to solving the mystery of his erased past. As he begins to piece things together, Allcom discovers that Jennings tampered with the groundbreaking project and begins hunting him down.

When he is offered a helping hand from a former partner whom he can't even remember (Uma Thurman), things become more complicated.

It's then that Jennings finds the technology he was working on is a machine capable of seeing around the curve in time to the future. It is up to him to retrace the steps of his past, so he can figure out where the clues he has left himself will ultimately take him. His failure could have dire consequences for mankind.

This is a good scientific thriller, with the time-displacement elements making for some impressive plot twists, as the story works backwards and forwards at the same time. The action scenes and the acting are fine, but it's the ideas this film carries, the ideas of Philip K. Dick, that make it stand out from the crowd.

The film looks convincing too.

As our technology improves, it's becoming increasingly difficult to be wowed by machines and computers, but as Paycheck suggests, maybe we need to keep a closer eye on our technological ambitions, lest they destroy us.