Deja Vu

I was beginning to worry that Tony would never shoot anything in “ordinary" style, but in Déja Vu we are back on the level of let’s say Enemy of the State. The screenplay manages to keep the viewer glued to the screen and even though it looks complicated, it is quite simple, fortunately lacking the nowadays-so-common glitches. Although Denzel Washington is playing the role of a cop again, I must say he is still fine here, just cool in different way. I must say the film has really good vibes and I would gladly watch it again sometime. Mainly the time travel chase in the souped up Humvee is a work of a genius :). (2007-06-05)

What is interesting about Déjà Vu is primarily how its screenplay provides the ideal framework for director Tony Scott’s stylistic development. After the extravagant Domino, in which the unreliable narrator gave space to spectacular formal flamboyance, Scott’s upcoming project gives the impression of being a sort of calming. However, by combining various cameras, materials, shooting speeds and post-production processes, the director found an ideal application for playing with the impression of the moment in Déjà Vu’s narrative, which in the essential middle part works with the possibility of looking into time running in the past while changing points of view. In its peak scenes, the film brings a wildly fragmented view of two different time planes running concurrently, but thanks to the visual stylisation, the viewer never gets lost even for a moment. Domino and Déjà Vu together represent the two highlights of Scott’s late-period filmography, where in the respective screenplays he had the ideal framework for his formal experiments – in one case, unbridled wildness in the interest of increasing the expressiveness and delirium of the narrative and, in the other case, the paradoxical use of those elements for maximum clarity and a credible display of the fantastical aspects of intersecting time planes. (2020-11-17)

Tony Scott abandoned his epileptic camera manias that bogged down the otherwise impeccable Domino and took on a script that may look original, but some of us have had the privilege before, including bending paper to explain a space-time jump (remember Event Horizon?). Some may legitimately find the whole plot terribly wacky, others may not like the incongruous combination of crime and sci-fi, but in any case Scott has made an easily digestible flick that is nice to watch, good for eating popcorn and out of your head before you can say "deja-vu". And it's a pity that, given the development of the plot, I had already figured out the only possible resolution half an hour before the end. (2007-04-09)

Déjà Vu was a very pleasant surprise. At first I was actually thrilled with the idea and the way it’s executed. By the middle, however, the script takes a turn to Hollywood mainstream, the logic gets lost and my enthusiasm waned. When it comes to time travel, it prefers a “whatever happened happened” approach to a “you can change everything” one, but I still think it’s a very well made film that’s worth watching. (2010-08-29)

An incredibly gripping masterpiece in a stylish sci-fi guise that is not marred by the understandably convoluted plot involving time travel. Tony Scott has cut down with the epileptic editing, tamed the frantic camera, and now there is something to watch again. After the visually stunning but narratively unexciting Domino, the technical genius brings us a thrilling story that speaks much more to a wider audience. Even though it’s less action-packed, it’s far more thrilling and dynamic, and above all, there are a lot more emotions, like, simple looks into the eyes. There are a few flaws and the aforementioned narrative tricks and crutches, but they couldn't be avoided. Also, the motive of the killer is somehow bland and unsatisfying. But that does not change the fact that Scott is currently an absolute number one in terms of audiovisuals, and with a skillful screenwriter, it usually results in an interesting cinematic addition. (2008-01-03)