Deja Vu

I was beginning to worry that Tony would never shoot anything in “ordinary" style, but in Déja Vu we are back on the level of let’s say Enemy of the State. The screenplay manages to keep the viewer glued to the screen and even though it looks complicated, it is quite simple, fortunately lacking the nowadays-so-common glitches. Although Denzel Washington is playing the role of a cop again, I must say he is still fine here, just cool in different way. I must say the film has really good vibes and I would gladly watch it again sometime. Mainly the time travel chase in the souped up Humvee is a work of a genius :). (06/05/2007)

Old masters Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott created a hybrid of Van Damme’s Timecop and Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. The great Denzel Washington heroically shoots his way through the film, which can boast precise filmmaking and a great number of screenwriting ideas, but unfortunately suffers from just as many lapses in logic, including the biggest one, connected to the excessively romantic (but emotionally pleasant) happy ending. Déjà Vu is a pleasant, relaxing film that you shouldn’t overthink. (06/17/2007)

Déjà Vu was a very pleasant surprise. At first I was actually thrilled with the idea and the way it’s executed. By the middle, however, the script takes a turn to Hollywood mainstream, the logic gets lost and my enthusiasm waned. When it comes to time travel, it prefers a “whatever happened happened” approach to a “you can change everything” one, but I still think it’s a very well made film that’s worth watching. (08/29/2010)

I won't argue with anyone that the script is total phantasmagoria, but no one can tell me that Tony Scott has no competition in the field of "high-speed". Such visual lipstick, which he paints with cinematographer Paul Cameron, would be the envy of the entire cosmetics industry. The plot moves along briskly and, aware of its simplicity, at times goes so far that you wait for Denzel Washington to wink lasciviously not only at his colleagues but also at the viewer through the camera. The only problem may seem to be the ending, but the way the screenwriter duo navigates the trade-off between choosing between fate and pandering to an audience hungry for uniform outcomes is actually to be applauded. This is a twisted and funnier variation on Minority Report, which wins points over Spielberg for me. (01/26/2009)

The first two thirds of this picture are outstanding in all respects, but the nearer it draws toward the ending, the more Déjà Vu suffers from its miserable screenplay which tries to convince you that there is more to it than you think. The subject matter isn’t bad, has considerable potential, even working excellently for quite a while, but the ending trips the whole thing up. Even so, the initial idea could be the makings of a pretty good story perhaps for a series like CSI. What makes it even more of a shame is that otherwise this Tony Scott / Denzel Washington duo collaboration worked out well... Well, almost. This time Scott seems to have taken sedatives and although the directing doubtlessly does have his characteristic idiosyncrasies, compared to his recent movies, you can watch this without risking an epileptic fit. This walks in the footsteps of techno-thrillers such as Enemy of the State, but this has a taste of sci-fi in it and almost zero humor. It’s certainly worth watching, but it might be worth leaving the movie theater when the “operation is called off as successfully solved". That way Déjà Vu could aspire to achieving much higher quality levels and you wouldn’t be left with the feeling that somebody missed a big chance. (12/23/2006)