"Didn't you just ask me that?" | 2008-09-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1F79FJJ7WZ0Q0 |
| I love movies about Time-Travel. This one was done fairly well with a plausible explanation. I had seen the trailer for this one but didn't find it alluring enough to fork over the $7 to see it at the movies or $5 to rent. I was fortunate enough to watch it for free on a STARZ free preview weekend. So for a free flick I give it 3 stars. Definitely worth it. Enjoy. |
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"Best Blu-Ray in my Library" | 2008-08-25 |
| - Reviewed By anaheimguy |
| The Blu-ray release of Deja Vu has become my favorite DVD in my collection. I won't discuss the movie itself, but the "Surveillance Window" in the Special Features. This is combination director's/writer's commentary combined with seamless "how we did this" vignettes. I would get this before any other Blu-ray purchase. |
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"Disappointing "science/fiction" thriller" | 2008-08-16 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3HYF6WCIP4XXR |
| I was expecting a lot more from Tony Scott and this "science/fiction" movie. I really enjoy Denzel Washington, but this plot was just too confusing and implausible. I had to watch it a few times to try to "make it fit," but I still didn't understand the ending. Too many things just didn't make sense. Although the acting was fine and the premise had great possibilities, the screenwriter couldn't quite put it all together. It wasn't a very good job of either "science" or "fiction." Don't bother to watch this unless you're just dying to see Denzel in another movie. |
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"Time Travel/Action film with some inconsistencies" | 2008-07-25 |
| - Reviewed By 1_pete_ |
This movie has two things I like in movies: Denzel Washington and time travel. I figured it wasn't a can't miss. Indeed, the movie itself is quite entertaining. Denzel plays an ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) officer who is brought into to help investigate a bombing. He is introduced to some very high tech government surveillance which turns out to be a bit of a time-warp/travel mechanism. Needless to say, high jinx ensue and everyone has a good time.
This movie would have received a 4 out of 5 rating but the time travel elements bothered me. They just didn't work. They even tried to go over time travel theories in the movie, including the parallel universe theory first introduced to me in Back to the Future. Back to the Future had it down to a science, but I think this movie gets it wrong. When Denzel starts investigating the case, he comes across clues that are there only because he has already altered the past. But these clues should only appear in the parallel universe in which the past is altered. This may have been plausible if they stuck with the "non-parallel universe" theory, but it didn't work because eventually they do stop the bombing (not a big giveaway), which diverges from the non-parallel universe. To put it in Back to the Future terms, it would be like Marty was living in the altered 1985 in which he had confident, capable parents before he went back to 1955 to take the actions that caused them to be confident and capable people.
But still some pretty good entertainment. A little violent though. |
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"Compelling, yet contrived" | 2008-07-14 |
| - Reviewed By kinggrim |
| Denzel Washington makes his third go around with director Tony Scott with Deja Vu; a modern day sci-fi thriller that re-affirms Scott's skill as a director after the disappointing Man on Fire and Domino. Washington stars as an ATF agent investigating the bombing of a ferry, and discovers a victim (the gorgeous Paula Patton) that shouldn't be there. Soon he discovers a method of looking back into the past when he is recruited by an FBI handler (Val Kilmer), and begins to have feelings for the woman, so much so that he contemplates going back in time and saving her life. The time travel element could have felt hokey, but it manages to work surprisingly well here, and Scott's visual flair only helps. What hurts Deja Vu is that it's pretty predictable. Some of the twists, well, just aren't all that twisty. Not to mention that when looking at Deja Vu as a pure action movie, it just meanders quite a bit. However, much of Deja Vu is compelling, and Washington is great as always, and there's solid turns from Kilmer, Patton, Adam Goldberg, and Jim Caviezel to boot. All in all, Deja Vu is certainly worth a look at the very least, but the end result just doesn't live up to it's potential. |
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"Hard to believe but good film." | 2008-07-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2PV6GK1HV54Y9 |
| Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington is an effective film even though this plot could never happen in real life. The supporting cast makes this film worth watching, James Caviezel and Val Kilmer are excellent in their very different roles. This film deals with the effects of time travel, this aint no Back to the Future but this film is grossly engaging. |
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"By the numbers - predictable" | 2008-07-07 |
| - Reviewed By philip1 |
| I'd sum up the experience of seeing this mediocre film as: predictable, you have seen it all before, and it's a thin story idea. The actors had all of the correct facial expressions at all times, to match the dialogue - hopefully they weren't paid too much for doing this. That's about it. (A friend lent this to me, so I'm glad I didn't buy it.) |
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"Schizophrenic patriotism" | 2008-07-06 |
| - Reviewed By wuivre_eternelle |
A strange film on a very trite and over-used theme. The dedication to New Orleans does not change that fact. After "Back to the Future" we cannot accept some of the rather sloppy elements we find in this film. A few examples. At the beginning, thanks to the machine to explore the past, we discover the car with the explosives on the boat did not have a number plate. How can security rules explain the fact that a car without a number plate was allowed on a boat transporting more than 500 people? The terrorist stole a car because he needed one. But he actually had one. So why did he use a stolen one? But the worst part is how the Doug from the future when arriving in the past does all kinds of antics, leaving all kinds of traces behind him in the past, obviously cutting short the plan of the terrorist, and yet the terrorist will fulfill his plan entirely in the first version of the attack, but in the first version still the investigation reveals the Doug from the future has already intervened in the past and hence should have changed the result of the terrorist attack by hijacking it off its normal course. If he was in the girl's apartment before the terrorist attack, leaving his finger prints and his blood everywhere, how could the terrorist succeed in killing the girl and blowing the boat up. And he the Doug from the future dies in the past, that would make him dead for the future. He could not come up alive and start everything like normal after the explosion. If the past is changed, then the future is changed too. If you die, you die and you do not exist any more. And the Doug who died in the explosion will not be able to arrest the terrorist who was killed just before the explosion, both being dead for the future. And if the girl managed to escape from the car when it fell into the Mississippi through a broken window, and she was not trained like a federal agent, how come Doug, a trained federal agent, could not follow suit and get out from the car through the same window? But we can suspend our disbelief and then consider the film as something that does not have to be logical. Pure action. Fine. What's the meaning of this action in 2006, five years after 9/11 and three years after the invasion of Iraq, not to mention today in 2008? Terrorist attacks in the USA come from white Americans who define themselves as patriots and consider they have to attack the security forces and the people of the USA to make them realize they have to start a third world war to stop the world from changing and to prevent the USA from becoming a second rank nation, and do not forget the USA became the first nation in the world after and thanks to the second world war. And in this scenario, one little bomb can kill more than 500 people. They don't need four or five Boeings to do that. One man alone, properly trained can be a lot more effective than Al Qaeda. That's what you call economy of scales. The second idea is that in such cases the terrorist, when caught, will be buried by the FBI into silence and disappearance because the government will not want details to be given on two subjects. First of all the absolute incapability of the state to protect the territory and the people of the USA. Second the fact that they possess a technology that enables them to reconstruct everything that has happened in a particular place, behind walls, closed doors and any kind of protection. There is no privacy and no protection of privacy in this new hi-tech vision. That is a lot more frightening than a few berserk patriots who consider the death of a few thousand people to be a good thing to arouse consciousness. There, beyond believability, this film is a really scary movie. "Minority Report" was frightening but they only read the future, and in the end dropped the technology for political reason. Here it is a lot worse since they can read the past, what really happened. We are trapped 100%. We are under constant surveillance and control by people, forces and agencies we do not even know exist or will exist.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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"GREAT" | 2008-07-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1W7ZCW9OZY0EV |
| I'm not going to add a description as previous posts have done it justice. However, I just saw this move (yes, I know - 2 year later) and it is ridiculously good. I love the whole time travel twists in movies and it's up there with Frequency for me. If you like action or time travel twists Deja Vu is a must see. Enjoy. |
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"Brilliant" | 2008-06-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A26SWQ07TYB5TO |
Finally, an intelligent, unpredictable movie that causes you to question what you've seen long after finishing the movie. I watched it alone and wanted my husband to watch it so we could talk about it.
Denzel was superior. Paula Patton is gorgeous and has promise. She played the helpless victim role well.
I will certainly watch this movie again.
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