Woo-ing Ben

PAYCHECK ''What that machine's doing is what you call a memory wipe,'' explains the man in the hot seat, Ben Affleck, who must reassemble three years' worth of erased recall in December's sci-fi thriller ''Paycheck,'' directed by John Woo (''M: I-2''). Affleck's computer engineer soon realizes that perhaps he did something terrible during those missing years, and he has to find out what. ''There isn't a lot of shooting or exploding; it's more about building suspense,'' he says. ''It's a science fiction movie, but it's got an old-fashioned style in a weird way, with a John Woo touch, which makes it feel modern and slick and beautiful.''