@mechajutaro said:

Yeah; for all of this one's flaws, it's reflective of a time during which studios were eager to produce movies featuring real human beings, stories that were mildly-very believable, and the screen was frequently awash with blood and grime. Today, the powers that be in Tinseltown would insist on putting the lead character in a cape, mask, and tights, giving him the powers of flight and/or webs that shoot out of his wrists, and devoting the first 40mins of the movie to an origin story. There would be an insistence on making the villains space aliens with designs on enslaving the entire planet, any violence that couldn't be accompanied by a "POW" ala. the Adam West Batman series would be given a red light by producers, and the very suggestion of making any character a dominatrix would induce an aneurysm in someone occupying the E-suties over at Disney

Our overall quality of life here in '21 is inarguably leaps and bounds beyond what it was in '99. Sadly, this isn't true for our perhaps irreparably infantilized movie industry

Wow. This response caught me off guard. Maybe too existential, considering the film, but I try to answer. My English is not the best, sorry.

When it comes to the flaws of Payback, it will surely have them, but I don't really have a critical eye for movies or the analytical tools to talk/write about them in a smart way. I watch stuff and like or don't like it, in different shades.

You obviously are not a fan of superhero movies and the current mainstream Hollywood system, as far as I understand. I don't know much about it and would be completely lost in any meaningfull discussion. I only can tell you that I'm not anti current -mainstream, -hollywood, -superheroes,- big franchises,... I just don't care about most of it and try to see the stuff that I enjoy (tv stations in Germany are right now doing a good job for me, always some little gems to find here and there). The fact that I'm not American or in the USA probably plays a role in that, so I don't have any feeling of loss or somekind of nostalgia.

I'm not trying to change your opinion or something, don't get paid for that, and I might misunderstand your response, but I hope that this wasn't completely meaningless drivel. I wouldn't say you are wrong, my view of things is just that I am in the "hey, fuck it"-camp.