Deja Vu - LTs Review - The Real Deja Vu Is Seeing Paula Patton - Even Halle Berry Would Do A Doubletake!

Webster's Dictionary describes deja vu as:
Pronunciation: "dA-"zhA-'v[ue]
Function: noun
Etymology: French, adjective, literally, already seen.
1 a : the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time b : a feeling that one has seen or heard something before.
2 : something overly or unpleasantly familiar.

Official Deja Vu movie site: dejavu
Genre: Action/Thriller/Romance


OK, off the top I will also say that Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi Channel fans, and fans of the radio program Coast to Coast AM will probably love to see this movie just because of the premise and subject matter alone.

Deja Vu, stars Denzel Washington, Paula Patton (Idlewild), Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) and Val Kilmer and is Directed by Tony Scott and Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The story begins with a ferry bombing in the bank of a river in New Orleans. The ferry is filled with Navy Officers on leave with family and friends. Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is an ATF agent sent to investigate the crime. Other government agencies are brought in to investigate. As the movie progresses, we find out via FBI Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) that the government has invented a machine that can travel back through space and time to 4 days and 6 hours ago via satellites in space and other top secret technology and basically show what happened (or what is happening) live on monitors in real time - (real time in the past as it is happening that is), i.e. who were (are) the players involved, the possible suspects etc. Are you still following me? lol. I know, it gets it a little complicated. It got a little technical too but it seemed they really did their homework with physics experts to see how close they could get this story right according to science. They basically need Doug's (Denzel's) help to show them where to look.

The catch is they can't press Reverse, Fast Forward, Pause or even record what they see on thier monitors. They have to watch it as or in this case as it happened 4 days ago until it catches up to the actual event they want to see.

This is where this movie in its script reminded me of Minority Report where in the future it becomes possible to see a crime before it happens based on different variables. This part of the movie also reminded me of different scenarios in Star Trek where writers experimented many times with what can one do with alternative timeline continuums. If one was to intefere, or change something, what would happen. Back To The Future also explored this though more in a comedic way.

Without giving everything away, Denzel goes back in time to see if he can help to avoid the ferry bombing and also to avoid (Paula Patton) character's death.

I thought that this movie overall was well done. It is paced well and it keeps one's attention with all the twists and turns. There are probably many ways one could do a movie about the subject of deja vu and I was thinking of some personal deja vu moments I have had after I saw this that have happened in my own life that were pretty stunning the way they played out and even the length of time some deja vu moments happened, Seconds, minutes, a series of days or months.

This movie takes deja vu in a different sci-fi/action/thriller kind of way and the results are mainly entertaining and satisfying for how they did what they did. It also made me think of George Orwell's book 1984 and how he predicted there would be cameras almost everywhere you go today recording your every move. That combined with the technology we have today and where we wil even be 25 years into the future with it all? Something to think about, eh?

Paula Patton - The Real Deja Vu! Even Halle Berry Would Do A Doubletake!

OK, here is something that may make some of you laugh. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I didn't immediately recognize Ms. Patton (from Idlewild) and since they did not announce her name in the trailer, I actually thought it was either a new unknown actress we haven't seen yet or it was possibly Halle Berry, but I couldn't figure out why wouldn't they have announced Halle's name too. Denzel and Halle in their first film together? That would have been big news. So, OK, it wasn't Halle Berry. Lol!

I did think though that Paula Patton resembles Halle Berry very much in this movie. At times I felt like I was actually looking at Halle Berry because of different camera shots etc. Ms. Patton's performance was very good and very natural. Did I feel like she was acting like Halle Berry on purpose? Lol! No, I did not feel that, but I did think she has a natural "something" on her own that is similar to Halle Berry in her performance on screen. She has a beautiful on-screen, natural presence and to be honest, when she wasn't on the screen, I found myself missing her character's presence and actually wanted to see her again aside from the obvious reasons. lol! Fellas, can you hear me? lol! Good actress. And of course Denzel was great as usual D.

Since we have not seen Denzel and Halle in a movie together yet, no disrespect to Ms. Patton, but this movie actually gave me a personal hint-glimpse-feel of what it may visually look like on screen when we finally do see Oscar winner Denzel Washington and Oscar winner Halle Berry in a movie together - possibly a romance film for starters? I guess we will see in time but to me it is a no-brainer to have them do a movie together at some point, although I would also like to see Denzel star with Angela Bassett again in a romance film as well. I really liked their chemistry in Malcolm X.

Overall, DeJa Vu is definitely worth a looksee. I give it a "Go See It."