Monday, December 18, 2006

Tony Scott has no sense of irony

It can be the only explanation for making a film that doesn’t contain a single original element and calling it Déjà Vu.

It was really very bad, much worse than I was expecting it to be. The plot made absolutely no sense whatsoever for a start. There is a whole lot of debate raging over on IMDb right now about the various timelines the film has or may have. There is a very big school of thought that there is a whole chunk of stuff that takes place prior to the opening credits that can be pieced together as the film goes along. Uh, I think you’re crediting the writers a little too much there. The plot, such as it is, has numerous holes through which one could easily drive a truck and the time travel element of it simply fails to work. When making a film that deals in the notion of time travel and altering the past, you’re going to require a lot of disbelief suspension. It’s only possible if the film you’re watching is coherent and has some kind of internal logic. This is not that film.

Denzel looks bored, he’s barely even trying to disguise the fact he’s wondering what he’s doing in this shit. None of the other characters are even one dimensional, let alone two (one of the technical people dealing with the time travel McGuffin seems to serve the sole purpose of saying “address is in range” and then crying when things get a bit violent). Actually, I take that back. Adam Goldberg manages to deliver his dialogue like he really means AND understands it. Given that one of his lines actually says something like “warp the very fabric of space”, that’s no mean feat. Jesus (that’s Jim Caviziel to me and you) plays the terrorist bad guy. It’s interesting that filming a love scene is offensive to his Christian values, yet blowing up ferries, setting people on fire and waving around machine guns is fine because his character spouts some nonsense about God and destiny.

So in short, best to avoid this one.

1 comment:

Limecrete said...

Eh, I didn't think it was bad. Of course, I went into it thinking it would be crap on toast, so it didn't have to do much to exceed expectations.