10 Philip K Dick Movie Adaptations Ranked Best To Worst

Though set in the near future, there’s an old-fashioned feel to this thriller, in no small part thanks to director John Woo’s sly references to Alfred Hitchcock, which work about as well here as they did in Mission Impossible II.

The plot couldn’t be simpler: Ben Affleck is a reverse engineer who agrees to have his memory wiped after completing an assignment for a billionaire, then finds himself wanted by the FBI and his ex-employers for reasons he doesn’t understand. What was the job he agreed to? And how will the apparently random objects he sent himself allow him to make sense of it all?

Apart from a few Woo trademarks (slow motion, white doves etc) you wouldn’t know you were watching a movie from the director of Face/Off, and it’s not a good sign when the action – which typically provides the standout sequences in a Woo movie – is pretty lacklustre. It’s Philip K Dick by way of low-energy John Woo by way of MacGuyver and, sad to say, Woo’s last Hollywood film to date.