Deja Vu review by Rosie

Déjà Vu

I’m watching a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer that is full of massive, over-the-top explosions, dangerous car chases and loud gun fights … is this déjà vu?

I’m watching a movie in which Denzel Washington plays a smarter-than-everyone-around-him investigator who begins to suspect that there is something bigger going on with his current case and won’t rest until he uncovers the truth …I really feel like this might be déjà vu.

I’m watching a movie starring Val Kilmer that was made this decade … ok, this is probably not déjà vu.

Well, even though I’m not experiencing it, I am watching it. Déjà Vu takes viewers along on a trip to the universal convergence point of loud noises, shiny things, muddled logic and predictability. Denzel Washington stars as ATF agent Doug Carlin, who gets swept up in a world of high-tech secrecy when an investigation into a ferry bombing leads to an investigation of a woman’s murder leads to the discovery that the government has a top secret lab where they have accidentally figured out how to bend the fabric of time and see directly into the past. (Pretty formulaic, if you ask me).

Even though the marketers did a decent job of hyping up the whole, “If you thought it was just a trick of the mind, prepare for the truth.”, gimmick, trust me I’m not giving anything away here by telling you these things. Mostly because there is nothing to give away. Despite it’s title, Déjà Vu has very little at all to do with the actual phenomenon of déjà vu. If anything it’s more about looking into the past and spying on people and sometimes they kind of feel like they’re being watched, but mostly not. I’m guessing they just decided it sounded cooler in the ads to go with “Denzel Washington in (fffffwhip-thud) – Déjà Vu.” than, “Denzel Washington in (fffffwhip-thud) “Looking into the past and spying on people and sometimes they kind of feel like they’re being watched, but mostly not.” Personally, I don’t agree, but it’s their movie.

But since they did pick this path, I have to say that for a movie that purports to blow up the myth of coincidences, it sure benefits from a lot of them. Like the fact that the bad guy (James Caviezel) just happens to also be a modern day philosopher, who likes to expound on the unchangeable nature of destiny - even though he doesn’t even know about their secret time-ray camera thingy. Boy is he in for surprise! Or like when Carlin tries teleporting himself back in time and lands right in a fully staffed hospital room with all the equipment they would need to revive his shocked body. Phew!

In the end (or is it the beginning? Ooooh.), Déjà Vu just tries to hard to be smarter than it is and ends up looking really, really dumb. None of their time-space relationship theories about the repercussions of meddling in the past make any sense and, even by their own Crayola-logic, the outcomes that happen don’t make sense. Though, no matter how confusing it may be at any other point, the outcome could not have been more predictable. Or maybe I’ve just seen it before. Whoa, dude …




3 out of 10 Jackasses
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