Paycheck

Ben Asslick, I mean Affleck, doesn't know what's going on. His character, that is. It's unproven whether Ben himself is all a bit simple. And anyway the character isn't simple, he's a technical clever bastard who reverse engineers people's technological breakthroughs then has his memory wiped in order to protect himself and his employer from prosecution. Have you worked out this is based on a Philip K. Dick story yet?

Uma Furface is his lovely love interest who is a doctor of plants and weather or something. She is utterly under-used and could just as well be a plant pot. Or an icicle.

Aaron Eccles Cake is the naughty bad employer bastard mean naughty horrid ooh he's such a bad guy.

Am I laying it on a bit thick here? Well maybe but that's nothing to the heavy hand with which John Woo (what's that Tom Cruise, he's 'the Woo'?) directs. Far too many close-ups on Affuck's expressionless face, way too few well written or delivered lines of dialogue, an excess of explosions and motorbike bullshit, a repeated cutaway of a slo-mo bullet spinning towards its target. In the future.

It's all about designing a machine to predict the future then, if you're Benbo, realising this is a terrible thing, almost like removing hope from Pandora's box and letting Cassandra dictate all world policy forever (yes, I've read some Greek mythology, why do you ask?). So Ben, knowing his memory will be wanked away leaves himself clues and items to help him work out what he wants to tell himself post memory wipe so he can kill the machine and stop Aaron Ecky Thump from ruining the world.

Pah! Kill them all, I say. Especially if John Woo can somehow be all killed in the process. Or, if not all killed then killed enough in the mind tank to make him forget he's a film director. Perhaps he could take up fishmongery? I don't really care what career he pursues, just trying to pretend I don't wish the people behind terrible films dead. Even though I often do.

Quite why Thurman or Paul Giamatti should have chosen to associate themselves with this shit escapes reason. Did Woo sell it as a futuristic Memento? If he did he lied. Fishmongery's loss is also cinema's loss.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man is dead. Again. Officially. Because of that bloke from Neighbours who was in Memento. And that woman who played Lynne Frederick in Frost/Nixon. Her botanical shenanigans and his evil nemesis master skills combine to create a loopy, loopy scenario in which the disabled can grow back amputated limbs. It's not all fun, they also sort of become human bombs.

To cover for the early mistakes in research and the explodey consequences that bloke from Neighbours creates a phantom terrorist overlord, using that British guy who played Gandhi who in this film isn't playing Gandhi, he's a slobby actor.

Tony Stark isn't dead. Obviously. Because of his brilliant Iron Man suit. Suits. Plural. Oh, he was already doing that in Two. Anyway. He is miles from his now blown up home and his brilliant Iron Man suit needs serious repair work. He sneaks into a kid's barn, grooms the kid and is arrested by the authorities. No, hang on, that's Jim'll Man 3. He sneaks into the barn, befriends the kid and together they learn stuff. Like the stuff I've already told you about the blowy uppy tendencies of the new limb gang.

Oops, that bloke from Neighbours has kidnapped Pepper Potts. Ha ha. It's a joke name. Get it? Well if you haven't got it after forty odd years of graphic novels and three movies then you're not much of a giggler, are you? He also kills the Lynne Frederick woman and wants to do another murdery thing to the chap playing the President (character names aren't all jokes so I'm not bothered about them that much). To prove his evilness. Again. As if we didn't know. We knew, didn't we? We bloody knew.

And it all kicks off at the end with many Iron Man suits plus War Machine (or the neutering rename, Iron Patriot), plus Tony, and eventually plus an almost explodey Pepper combining to beat the living fuckery out of Neighbours bloke. Couldn't happen to a more horrid bloke from Neighbours. Although he was actually quite nice in Neighbours. Remember? And he didn't release a cash-in pop single which is another reason to love him. Except when he's in Iron Man 3. Loathe him and be glad he's dead.

As ever the Stark character is tailor-made for Robert Downey Jr. Sardonic, laconic, a lush, a little louche, and yet someone who always wins through in the end. I get confused with the Marvel universe chronology; was Captain America: Civil War after this film? This one seems like a swan song for Downey but if he's donned the suit again for purposes of Avengering then he could continue clanking across our screens for some time to come. No argument from me. Even though this movie is more percussive than substantial.