Déjà vu

'Deja Vu has been seen before'

Well, Tony Scott’s time traveling drama has come and gone from theaters. To claim mixed feelings seems a fair judgement. The film succeeded on several levels. The actors were pretty good, after all it is hard to ever argue with Denzel Washington in the role of a police investigator. I seem to have a hard time pointing out where the film fails and why I left wholely unsatisfied whereas several middle schoolers out on a date in front of me left raving about how the film blew their minds. Yes, I’m older which plays a small part. Really where the film fails I think is in its mediocrity. My expectations were a bit high for this film considering the hype and the fact that the director is Ridley Scott’s brother. I guess I expected an eye-opening fresh experience when instead I had a decent one. First, the actors.

In this film Denzel Washington plays a police investigator who is brought on board after a huge explosion killing many navy men on temporary leave in New Orleans. He then tries to find a way to stop the death of Halle Berry and the many navy men aboard the ship. Denzel is Denzel and he will always be a great cop. I kind of wish that directors would stop typecasting him so much, or maybe he just really likes playing strong authoritative black men. He works fine and differentiates the role slightly from his previous cop type roles. Then there is Halle Berry, who manages to pull off one of her best performances believably, I feel, and manage to finally look attractive all at once. I admit that I am not a Halle Berry fan and I have never understood the fascination with her beauty. I prefer Tyra Banks or Gabrielle Union honestly for looks and I think Vivica A. Fox is more like what Halle should be. In this film though, I have finally seen the acting potential and the beauty I have heard so much about. Kudos to her, but with that being said the performance is still nothing outstanding or amazing. The villain is done by none other than Jesus himself, Jim Caviezel. I’m glad I saw him again because after The Passion it seemed like he fell off the face of the earth and I get the impression now that he’s trying to reinvent himself as a versatile actor and not be known as Jesus like Christopher Reeves was known as Superman. With that being said, he pulls it off well. His character is cold and demeaning and one of the scariest villains I have seen on a screen. He felt like Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs because at any moments when he was captured you got the feeling that he might leap up and decapitate Denzel Washington while smiling, except you could never see his muscles tensed. Very creepy. The supporting cast do a decent job as well with people like Val Kilmer and Adam Goldberg turning in okay jobs. The fact of the matter is that the film rests on Denzel’s shoulders where he carries things effortlessly as always. So, in the end, a decent job by the cast with a well deserved nod to Caviezel and an improvement in Berry’s work.

Well, now to the problems. The plot does a good job of creating an invisible co-star out of the element of time itself as Denzel works against it and time travels. It even does a decent job of keeping a continuity where weird little things in the beginning of the movie make sense after Denzel travels in time and tries to change things. The problem comes in how the time changes. The movie briefly explains a couple of simple theories as to how time works. The one it sticks to is the branch theory, which I personally do not ascribe to, in which when something is changed in the past the possibility of changing the future forever occurs. Now, my biggest complaint is that when Denzel does change the future to get the desired outcome, it is only a small thing that has changed. There were plenty of bigger events earlier that should have changed everything but didn’t. Also, why did Caviezel’s character come back to the boat? The end is way too tidy and everything feels like it was explained away in bad scientific theories. Denzel dies in the new time line by drowning (I think) so that the director doesn’t have to mess with the crazy idea of having Denzel meet himself. The villain comes back on board for a final confrontation and dies. Halle Berry lives anyway and meets the new Denzel Washington. I also dislike the Hollywood thing where actors seem like something the other one says is vaguely familiar, as if from a previous life. In this film that doesn’t make a lick of sense because when Denzel at the end, that Denzel never went back in time, will never go back in time, and should therefore have no recollection or even sense of vague familiarity with Halle's words which his old self had told her. The fact that the film has a science fiction component that is different from most sci-fi crime actioners is interesting but I feel it is badly implemented.

The last problem I have is with Tony Scott in the film. The cinematography is great and I feel like the continuity editor was amazing. However, the film is simply ok. It is not great unless you are being exposed to these ideas for the first time. I feel that Time Cop did a better job in this genre than this film and that I’ve seen a lot of these same gimmicks better realized in other films. They aren’t done badly, I’ve just seen them done better. I’m glad to see Tony Scott branching slightly into sci-fi, but he is primarily an action director as can be seen from his list of past films and it shows in this film. He has directed Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Man on Fire, Domino, and is working on a modernized version of The Warriors. Looking at this past work, I feel he was trying to copy the success he had with Man on Fire by having Denzel and setting in New Orleans. In fact, he does a really good job getting the feel of New Orleans without focusing on it heavily. Of course the action is intense and well done. But the relationships and dialogue need work and I feel like he could have really stepped it up on this one. Every director has bad films, which this one isn’t. It’s just not his best quality.

2.75 out of 5

Wannabe