Deja Vu

I am quite backlogged on reviews.

Deja Vu is a time travel movie starring Denzel Washington and directed by Tony Scott. Denzel plays an ATF agent that is investigating a terrorist bombing of a ferry in New Orleans. He is contacted by a special task force that uses new technology to investigate the crime.

To begin, I like Tony Scott, I think his movies are a more complex type of Michael Bay movies, the big action blockbuster, with the stylish colors etc. He makes good action movies generally. I also really like time travel movies for the most part. So as a whole I liked this movie a good bit. The time travel bit is done pretty well, and if you can get over the inconsistencies that plague it, it is very fun and intense.

The movie is split up into three distinct parts, the first being Denzel's solo investigation of the attack, the second being the investigation using the monitoring device, and the final being the part where Denzel actually time travels. The first two thirds are great, and I was loving the movie as a whole. However, once Denzel goes back to the last hours before the attack, the movie hits a rut. It starts going over all the events that you saw previously in the movie (bloody bandages at a victims house, certain victim wearing a certain color dress, etc), and you start to realize "oh man, everything is the same! it's leading up to the same conclusion." This is done so slowly. I understood what was going on in the first couple minutes, but it just dragged. Eventually the movie reaches it's gripping conclusion, and while it was very intense and thrilling, it didn't make any sense how the past changed like that. But that's time travel movies for ya.

When Denzel is first told about the technology the task force uses, they say it is an orbital satellite system that has four satellites on every part of the planet at any given time, and they can watch anything 4.5 days ago. I instantly thought this was ridiculous, and the most far fetched idea for a device I've heard in a long time. Finally, Denzel calls BS as well, and it turns out it's basically a wormhole camera that some physicists actually discovered. I thought this was interesting, and while not possible, it was a good plot device. It also leads to one of the most innovative car chases I've seen in a while, in which with a wormhole camera watching 4.5 days ago, Denzel is chasing a guy through New Orleans. Just different.

So, Deja Vu was a pretty good action movie, and a good scifi movie. Don't go in expecting brilliance on the science end, it glosses over any realism in that aspect, but it is still pretty good. I was physically drained afterwards, in a good way, because it is a really tight thriller.