Wikipedia defines deja vu as : experiencing a feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. An example would be when you visit a location which you swear you've been to before, but you know for a fact that this is your first time. Weird prickly feeling between the shoulders? Getting goosebumps? That's deja vu.
I dare say I have always been a huge fan of Jerry Bruckheimer. The man brought us "Pirates of the Carribean", and the "CSI" TV franchise. But I'm getting a sense of deja vu here with his latest movie, "Deja Vu"; and I'm not impressed.
Set in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras celebrations, the movie starts out with a happy scene depicting a group of navy men and their families on a ferry that has just set out from the pier. Unbeknownst to them, the ferry explodes and we soon see them screaming, running around and jumping off the ferry covered in flames. Soon, the scene shifts to the pier, where the wreckage and dead bodies are being pulled out of the water, and ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms) agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) arrives on the crime scene. In minutes, he is able to find and piece together enough clues to convince the FBI (Federal Beureau of Investigations) Beaurue that the explosion was no accident, but an act of sabotage. Later on, he is called to the morgue to check on what was suspected to be a victim of the explosion, named Claire (Paula Patton) but was confirmed to have been killed hours earlier.
Later, due to his seeming expertise in the field of crime scene investigations, he gets enlisted into the investigation by FBI Agent Pryzwara (Val Kilmer) and is introduced to a bunch of tech geeks at a lab. Led by Denny (Adam Goldberg), they launch into a series of mumbo jumbo talk to explain how a satellite codenamed "Snow White" is able to 'look' into the past, 4 days and 6 hours ago, by capturing resonant images, residue heat signatures and 'echoes' and stitch them together into a nice video. Considering that the satellite was unable to pinpoint the exact moment in time, but moved in a parallel constant path of 4 days and 6 hours, they needed to wait for another 4 days to capture the image of the ferry bomber. (Confused yet?)
Warning : spoilers are up ahead.
Carlin wants to see Claire in her apartment, believing that her death was linked to the ferry explosion. At this point we are treated to eye candy shots of Claire bathing (of course it's all covered up, this is still a film with U certification) and walking around in her underclothes. Yet, Carlin suspects that all is not right with the scene and soon confronts the tech geeks, forcing them to admit that 'Snow White' is, in fact, a time machine of sorts. Instead of taking images from the past, it actually folds time and space, connecting the viewer into the past itself - live.
Soon, Carlin chooses to go back into time to save the girl and stop the bomber, even though it was explained in the beginning that it could not be done. No matter, Carlin is willing to break the laws of temporal physics and destroy or distort a timeline to save lives. But what of the lives in the pre-existing timeline he plans to leave behind?
Anyone who's watched reruns of the"Star Trek" franchise, or followed Marty McFly in "Back to the Future" and also discussed vehemently the philosophy of time paradox will instantly feel annoyed with the weak explanations given by the writers of "Deja Vu" regarding this 'time-travelling miracle'. Without expanding a stronger and more plausible theory on time travel, it seems apparent that we are expected to suspend our belief completely and accept the theory at face value. Example - the satellite can capture images through walls?
However, let's not deny the fact that the satellite technology can be used, and even worse, abused, in order to keep an eye on people. So what's stopping the governments of the world from spying on each other? Probably, nothing.
Denzel Washington's take on the role of Doug Carlin was mediocre, considering the level of acting the two-timed Oscar winner is capable of reaching. The role was certainly not his best, compared to his roles in "The Preacher's Wife" and "Training Day", but perhaps it's Doug Carlin that is the flaw here, as the character does not seem enough of a challenge for Washington to be playing.
Things to note: Val Kilmer used to be the hottest male star around, especially when he was Batman/Bruce Wayne in Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever". Now he looks like a puffy-faced middle-aged man, who is having a bad acne reaction. Again, his acting talent is wasted here in this movie, leaving you wondering, where's the man from "The Saint"?
On the flip side, the action was gripping and exciting at times, keeping one at the edge of the seat. Look out for the car chase scene which runs parallel in two time dimensions, with a nifty helmet-gadget that links the feed to the boys back at the lab.
However, although the movie may have been called "Deja Vu", but there's nothing to signify feelings of deja vu in the movie at all. What the movie is, in fact, a time-travelling, science fiction-slash-action flick, which the director tries to play on the emotions of the audience by bringing a sense of tragedy akin to the Katrina hurricane disaster and 9/11 tragedy.
Being a Hollywood movie, the plot is predictable and slapped together just so that they could make a film to sponge off money from the holiday movie-goers. If I wanted to watched a ludicrous concept on time-travelling, I could have just watched "Star Trek: The Voyage Home" to get a piece of that. Slingshot around the sun to travel to the past, anyone?
For the overly critical movie plot analysts, my advice is to just sit back and enjoy the action. And if you feel a prickly feeling between your shoulder blades, someone could be watching you picking your nose delicately from the future.
