At a party at Rethrick's house, Michael exchanges small talk with the beautiful biologist Rachel (Thurman), demonstrating once again that we should never, ever worry about the cleverness of our small talk because in the movies, it can be formless and banal, and yet be repeated as a motif for an entire film. After Michael suggests that they "go somewhere else" and talk, she turns him down, and then she says, "You don't believe in second chances, do you?" Not a line to rank with "I want you to hold [the chicken salad] between your knees," but it will be repeated with variations, tears, irony, fondness and urgency, to prove that the movie has not had its own memory erased.
The ingenious element in the plot is that when Michael's three years are up and he's free again, he discovers he has signed away millions of dollars and is left only with a manila envelope containing 19 objects. These are apparently objects that the pre-wipe Michael knew that he would need post-wipe; he has to figure out what to use them for, and when. (Clue: He's being chased by killers at a bus station and -- whoa! -- He has a bus pass!)
There's an echo here of "The Bourne Identity" (2002), starring Affleck's buddy Matt Damon as an amnesiac who takes possession of a Swiss safe deposit box containing clues to several identities, perhaps including his own.
OK, so the idea is for Michael and Rachel to stop Allcom before it can destroy the world. Destruction is likely, it's explained, because if world leaders could foresee that their enemies planned to use weapons of mass destruction, they would launch a pre-emptive strike to respond to the attack before it takes place. Those wacky sci-fi guys! Their way to derail this scenario, of course, involves a long motorcycle chase sequence and a martial-arts battle.
Although Woo is famous for his mastery of action scenes, the motorcycle chase is played by the numbers; there hardly seems to be risk or danger involved, and the computer nerd and his biologist girlfriend don't seem particularly amazed when lots of men in black cars try to shoot them dead.
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