"Deja Vu" (2006)

Had to get out of the house tonight to stave off encroaching madness so off I went to my Fortress of Solitude; the local cineplex.

Took in Tony Scott's latest entry "Deja Vu". Everyone already knows what a Tony Scott fanboy I am and that I will see just about whatever the guy puts his directing tag on. I like every project the guy has done, even the few lame ones. Because even his lame-ducks are more visually and sonically interesting than most of the drek out there.

I had a feeling "Deja Vu" was going to be pretty mediocre as Scott films go. And I was right. It's a very pretty looking action-thriller with a time-travel twist that falls right into the I'd watch it if it was on tv some afternoon but won't go out of my way to own it category.

Scott reigns in his crazed visual style in this flick. Saving all of his nutso jump-cuts and experimental film-processes for the actual time-viewing machine rather than the entire universe the story takes place in. For the most part, in this one the real world looks and feels like the real world. Which is what is necessary for this story and I think Scott realized that the "Domino/Man on Fire" style wouldn't work here. That said the time-viewing technology looks fucking awesome (cyber-punk meets time-travel).

The fun of all time travel movies is the set-ups and pay-offs. And this movie has a million tiny details that pay-off by the end of the movie. I really thought they did a good job with the "Hey how'd that get there? - Oh right that's how!" kind-of stuff. Of course the science is mumbo-jumbo so you just have to suspend your disbelief and go for the ride. If you nit-pick too much the movie will start to unravel.

Denzel gives a good performance,grounding this far-fetched story by reminding us of the gravity of the situation the characters are in. The other performances are tight.

The best part of the movie for me was the dual temporal planes car-chase. It was probably the sole reason Tony Scott wanted to do this project. It was fucking cool to think about as well as watch.

I'd recommend this one as a good Friday night rental, but save your theater bucks for the bigger fish out there.

Originally posted on December 1, 2006 on Myspace.