A decent thriller with the right amount of twists in it, yet an amusingly corny packed ride

Rating: 6/10 (3 May 2007)

This movie was pretty much what I expected. Nothing too serious, just a fun ride from the beginning till the end. The plot has this good twist in it, which makes the movie interesting and there is overall pretty much the right amount of sci-fi and thriller blended together.
What to expect from a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer? Explosions, gun fights, car chases and over the top dramatized scenes. Well, that's pretty much what you get from Déjà Vu. The movie's enjoyable, but like said before, it's nothing too serious. Denzel Washington is entertaining as usual, a right man for the role indeed. Don't expect this movie to contain any phenomenal role performances, as that is really not the case when it comes to movies like this one. This is just another perfect example of a movie which is only made for entertaining purposes. If you want to see this and you see this, it's what you expect it to be, nothing more or nothing less, you finish the movie with that usual smile on your face. Your entertain level is satisfied.
The movie's a big cliché overall, quoting myself on what said before; Over the top dramatized scenes. I mean, it's so predictable. The cinematography almost does that all for you; Fast forwarding, slow motions, shaking the camera, the screen flashing white every now and then.. I could go on and on, but oh well, you get the point. That is sadly pretty much what the cinematography always does in these kind of movie nowadays. It's like every possible way of cinematography is already used before and no-one tries to make anything unique anymore. You could always just cut down the cliché(ish) ways and keep it simple and normal. Well, then the movies like these wouldn't actually be movies like these, so the cinematography does what it's supposed to do after all. You can't complain about that, now can you? The music is also used to make it more over the top and it's just a bunch of corny compositions put together to make the movie more emotional, but for me it's more like a bad joke. Overall the music is also so predictable, giving a random example of that; "Now he sees a dead man, now his eyes freeze, now he walks next to the body, close-up shot of the body, corny piano music starts playing, close-up to the main character's eyes, now a tear drop, oh how sad" Yup, got it right again. So predictable. Well, you can't complain as then again, you get what you order.
Like I mentioned before, the plot has this good twist in it and it does make the movie interesting. It's also a bit unique in its own way. Though it is surprising at first, it's all downhill after that, as then it catches that famous predictability. Well it's not as bad as you may think from that last sentence, it's just is what it is. Despite from all of this negative feedback I'd still recommend the movie if you're looking for an action packed ride with a bad ass lead actor in it.