Above Average Example of Typical Hollywood Dumb Thriller

Rating: 6/10 (29 November 2006)

"Deja Vu" is a movie along the lines of "Enemy of the State", where the basic premise is acceptable and the actors likable, but the plot depends on too much contrivance and a lazy script that insults the viewers' intelligence. Contrast this with exceptional genre films like "In the Line of Fire", and you can see how much more memorable such a film will be when the plot is both realistic AND thrilling.
While I was generally entertained by the action, I was also constantly distracted by things that just made no sense: SPOILERS***** When Denzel Washington's character is shot through the body (not just a flesh wound), he is not at all bothered by it...he is not hurting, not in shock, not inconvenienced or disabled, and not even really bleeding....are these actors and directors intelligent enough to at least add some small element of incapacitation when characters are injured like this? This reminds me of "The Bourne Identity", where Matt Damon's character is fished out of the sea with multiple bullet wounds. All he is wearing is a foam wetsuit, yet the bullets stop just inside the skin, as if he had a steel body under the outer layer...this makes him recover immediately after the ship crew digs the slugs out of, oh, 1/2" inch deep holes...what, no punctured lungs, arteries, nerve damage, internal bleeding? What crap! One has to suspend a certain amount of credulity when viewing fictional films of this genre, but what cretins the screenwriters must think the viewers are when they come up with these amazing computer labs where only a few talented, and very young, people have such immediate access to everything. Anything the lazy script writers find convenient for the plot is suddenly possible with the wiggle of a joystick or the tapping of a few keys. I wonder where the lab is that it can be hooked to the power grid in such a way that it can cause a black out over a huge region? Must be a really big extension cord. Sorry, but a single load cannot do this...I'm in the power industry, but almost anyone can figure this out easily enough.
The time warp machine has a limited radius, but it can magically fold time at a remote location over a low power headset device? Geez. We need better writers, Hollywood! That said, the dual car chase, with a car in the present chasing a car in the past was a pretty cool concept.
I just got all clammy when Denzel aimed a laser pen at a flat screen monitor showing the folded-time woman in the past, and she saw it on the wall of her house. I don't care how the machine works, a monitor is a monitor and does not work backwards. Even if it was a special two way monitor designed by the creators of the lab, then it follows that the people in the past would all be standing around looking at the funny people in the lab watching them like so many zoo animals...if it is two-way, then all light would go through backwards, not just the laser pen light, for God's sake! I'm just getting started, but you get the idea.
In my opinion, this movie will insult and bother intelligent, thinking viewers. Only through deliberate effort can such a viewer shut down their higher cognitive functions sufficiently for the film to be enjoyable.