Paycheck

I don't know why this film got such a panning, I found it very enjoyable.

When I first saw it at the cinema, it was spoilt for me. The cinema trailer was great; told you nothing but made me want to see it.

But I saw the TV advert the day before seeing the film. The TV advert started with that man who sounds like he smokes an entire carton of cigarettes a day: "Michael Jennings has invented a machine to see the future. Now, the government will stop at nothing to get hold of it...."

"Oh you rat's &%#@£^*!!!!!"

I was most annoyed, having deliberately avoided any spoiler sites.

Had it not been for this, I believe I would have really enjoyed watching this for the first time. However, the fact that I was still entertained is a testament to the film. Maybe I'm fickle. Maybe I just like big explosions, car chases and cool tech on display, but this film held my attention throughout, despite a complete lack of the following:

• The starship Enterprise
• Gratuitous female nudity
• Comedy segments
• Kung Fu

It also doesn't have the seemingly obligatory twist at the end of the film, which scores big bonus points for me. And for the most part, Ben Afflick's character isn't being the action man. He's using his smarts and his skills to avoid/escape the bad guys. I like that. Sure, it doesn't work in every scene. And his reluctance to use a gun throughout the movie makes the final showdown "clangy", like an out of tune bell. It just doesn't feel right.

But on the whole, there are worse ways to spend an evening. It's an enthralling story that kept me entertained. The story about the machine is also pure sci-fi in the best traditions (well, it is based on a Philip K. Dick story). Everything the machine predicts, they actually make happen because they've seen it.

Annoyances: One. There's a continual confusion between the idea of "viewing the future" and "predicting". The machine is supposed to show you the future as it will happen, so I don't know where this idea about prediction comes in. That implies uncertainty. But perhaps there just isn't a better word to describe what the machine does.

Although, I can't understand why the BBC showed this so late, especially for a network premiere. There's no bad language that I recall, the violence is fairly low key. It's perplexing.

Score: B (because it's already in my DVD collection)

OQ: 'That would be the Red Sox!' DVD extras: Usual stuff, a few deleted scenes (including that the bad guy's family was killed in an accident that the machine could have prevented).