entertaining but increasingly dumb

Rating: 6/10 (26 February 2008)

There's a clever premise in Deja Vu but it's not really cleverly executed. Some things make sense, some don't. The chase scene, in which Denzel races down the road after a car that raced down the road 4 days ago, is really ingenious. But the movie gets shakier as it goes along. I can't help but think it would have been more interesting if Denzel had not been able to go back in time but had been able to ingeniously effect the time line as he tried to do with the note. But that's a more cerebral approach and this is not a cerebral movie.
The little ending thing where it's implied they have some sort of connection is a perfect example of breaking the sci-fi premise. It's understandable that they would want to do that, but it doesn't make sense.
The thing that actually bothered me the most was the way Denzel kept going on about saving the woman. I mean, 500 people were dead, but he never says, "I have to go back in time to save all those people," he just says, "what about the girl." For him, saving the rest of them is apparently just an afterthought.
It's a generally entertaining movie, but there's just too much dumb in it to leave me satisfied.