Deja Vu (2006)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- ATF Special Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) risks his career and his life to stop a ferry bombing on Fat Tuesday, while simultaneously attempting to rescue Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton). Under the false pretenses of buying her car, a terrorist named Carroll Oerstadt (Jim Caviezel) kidnaps Claire and plans to use her vehicle to house a bomb intended to destroy the ferry.

After the tragic explosion on the ferry and Claire’s death, FBI Special Agent Paul Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) recruits Doug to join his team. Doug receives help from Paul, Dr. Alexander Denny (Adam Goldberg), Gunnars (Elden Henson), and Shanti (Erika Alexander) through Snow White, a complex surveillance system that’s capable of capturing past events and time travel.

Defying stern orders from  FBI Special Agent Jack McCready (Bruce Greenwood), Doug travels to the past with Denny’s help to stop the ferry bombing and save Claire. But a few unexpected developments complicates Doug’s plans.

My Thoughts- Doug Carlin is a rebel with a big heart. His partner, Larry Minuti (Matt Craven), Claire, Claire’s father (Enrique Castillo), and everyone on the ferry boat. There’s no denying that Carlin has fierce levels of compassion for helping others. 

Denzel brings the intensity to Carlin, when it’s necessary or the genuine emotional reactions for Claire and Larry. It’s heavily implied Larry would still be alive, if he didn’t chase after Oerstadt as a direct result of Doug sending a note to the past. Doug is someone, who comes off as a down to earth guy, with some unusual methods and habits, and Denzel easily delivers another good performance in the leading role here.

Jim Caviezel’s Carroll Oerstadt is everything a villain is supposed to be. I’ve always loved the interrogation scene with Denzel. That cold blank stare on Caviezel’s face, and the cocky smirk, when he tells Doug he’s determined to win. And notice how Oerstadt pulls the tape recorder closer to him, when he details how he murdered Claire. Oerstadt realized Doug deeply cared about Claire and the victims. He wanted to twist the knife by moving the tape recorder closer, while making sure to maintain eye contact with Doug. 

What’s scary about Oerstadt is, he truly believes he’s doing the right thing, motivated by “destiny.”  Oerstadt is obviously still bitter about being rejected by the Army and the Marines. He believes he’s a patriot, but in reality, he’s a coward and a hypocrite, who doesn’t have the guts to make the sacrifices he rambles on about. Carroll is completely nuts and delusional, but he’s also a cerebral antagonist. Truly a good performance from Jim Caviezel, because it’s easy to believe Carroll Oerstadt is a sadistic and deeply disturbed man.

Time travel films are tricky. You’ll always run the risk of the story becoming too wonky, if you constantly jump back and forth between timelines too much, but Deja Vu only has ONE time travel scene. 

Deja Vu is one of the few films I can think of, where time travel is presented as something that could be realistic. It’s not as simple as just punching in numbers on a computer, and bam! You’re almost instantly transported to your destination in time. Denny stresses the risks and dangers of time travel, including the possibility of death. Time travel also requires a lot of power, whether it’s just a note, or an actual human being (Doug) in the machine, so the scenes showing an entire grid losing power helps to add a tad bit of realism to the movie.

Deja vu and time travel are two elements that go hand in hand. Deja vu would explain why Doug has an obsession with saving Claire. You have to believe Doug traveled through time more than once to try and save Claire and foil Oerstadt’s plans. The evidence is all over Claire’s apartment, and Doug just can’t shake the feeling of knowing or having a connection with Claire in the past. 

The clever chase scene, where Doug is trying to track down Oerstadt’s hideout and hopefully save Larry is one of the big highlights of the movie. Weaving in and out of the past and present, while Doug follows Oerstadt using the Goggle Rig works as a unique chase sequence, and a refreshing spin on how time travel can be used with different methods.

The ending? I have to admit I’ve never been too crazy about Doug emerging to ride off with Claire after the bomb explodes underwater. I can understand why they wanted to go for the big happy ending, and it ties in with the deja vu theme throughout the movie. But Doug from the previous timeline dying without the appearance of another Doug would’ve had a stronger emotional impact. Doug successfully saved Claire, everyone on the ferry, and he killed Oerstadt, so mission accomplished, right?

But this is a time travel movie, so of course that means more opportunities for a number of scenarios and possibilities. I’m not a big fan of the ending, but I also wouldn’t call it a plot hole. Just going off of Denny’s explanations about time travel, it’s possible Doug finally closed some kind of loop, when he killed Oerstadt and saved the ferry. Everything reset to normal, so that would explain why the final version of Doug during the closing moments of the movie wasn’t familiar with Claire, and he genuinely had no idea who she was.

Certain events and moments in Deja Vu are a bit too convenient. After he travels to the past, Doug lands in a hospital right next to a group of surgeons, who are seemingly in the middle of open heart surgery? And Doug arrives in the ambulance moments before Oerstadt is about to cut off Claire’s fingers. 

Deja Vu is predictable, but it’s still an entertaining sci-fi action film. It’s heavy on the action, and Deja Vu delivers its fare share of thrills. Denzel Washington brings his usual commanding presence to this one. A solid supporting cast with noteworthy performances from Val Kilmer, Bruce Greenwood, and Adam Goldberg. There’s also some good humor here, especially the banter between Golderg, Henson, Alexander, Doug, and Doug’s K-Y Jelly line and Oerstadt’s reaction to it. And she’s basically limited to a damsel in distress role, but Paula Patton still manages to make the most of her appearances throughout the movie. 

Deja Vu is set during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. There’s a nice encouraging message for the people of New Orleans before the credits start rolling. There’s also a noticeable effort to showcase the customs and lifestyle in New Orleans. Doug riding a streetcar as a means of helping with his process to solve crimes, and Claire’s jazz inspired funeral are two good examples.

The opening scene of the movie does a great job of building sympathy for the ferry victims. The little girl dropping her doll in the water, the happy Navy sailors enjoying themselves, and it’s easy to see and feel the overall joyous mood on the ferry. It’s all snatched away from them in an instant, when the explosion happens. No time to react, no time to run for safety, or say any goodbyes.

Rating- 7/10

Project Almanac (2015)

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- David Raskin (Jonny Weston) finds plans for an unfinished time machine developed by his deceased father, Ben (Gary Weeks) in the basement of his house. David forms a team with his best friends Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner) to help him finish building the time machine, while his sister Christina (Virginia Gardner) records everything. And in a strange twist of fate, David’s dream girl, Jessie (Sofia Black- D’Elia) joins the group.

Eventually, the completion of the time machine is a success, but one careless mistake sets off a series of catastrophic events.

My Thoughts- David using the Terminator movies as an example to explain time travel? Brief footage from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure? Yep. It’s definitely a time travel film, but the found-footage POV brings a refreshing perspective to Project Almanac.

There’s a strong attempt at a good sense of realism for how they approached time travel. David warns everyone about the serious physical risks of using the machine, and I’m glad they didn’t go too over the top with trying to make the time machine itself some fancy looking high tech machine. David and Ben’s time machine looks homemade. They needed to use Jessie’s Prius battery for more power, and the group shopping for parts at an Ace Hardware was a nice touch.

Project Almanac feels more unique because of the found-footage POV, but it’s also a double-edged sword here. There’s way too much of the voyeurism stuff throughout the movie. Too many scenes with the camera sitting still recording conversations, using the camcorder for hidden camera moments that different characters aren’t supposed to see, and everything during the Lollapalooza stage of the movie feels like a big vlog from  a social media influencer. Voyeurism routinely kills any kind of momentum they’re trying to build, and you’ll have to wait until the tail end of the movie for a consistent pace.

It’s only a matter of time before the usual time travel movie tropes kick in. The group uses the time machine to win the lottery, Christina wants revenge on a bully, and Quinn enjoys having the chance to finally be one of the cool kids in school. But David sparks a series of chaotic events, when he secretly uses the time machine to go back in time for a shot at a second chance with Jessie at Lollapalooza. David finally gets Jessie to be his girlfriend, but his decision results in a domino effect with natural disasters, brutal accidents, and deaths.

There’s a part in the movie, where David introduces the strict rules for time travel to the group. The first rule? No one for any reason is allowed to time travel or “jump” alone. As soon as David introduced this rule, you had to know someone would break it, and David was a top candidate to do it because of his feelings for Jessie. 

After David’s failed attempts to cherry pick certain events from the past to fix his mess, he finally realizes he has to destroy the time machine to reset everything back to normal. David had to make the tough choice, knowing he would sacrifice his relationship with Jessie if he did it. The butterfly effect is always a crucial foundation for any time travel film, but Project Almanac’s approach to it kills a lot of the suspense here, with a predictable step by step process.

Project Almanac hits every time travel movie checkpoint you would expect, but there’s also a solid story with a good amount of emotion. When David goes back in time to destroy the time machine, he finally gets a chance to say goodbye to his father before he dies in a car crash. Quinn pleaded with David to find another way to fix things without destroying the time machine, because he didn’t want to lose his status as the big man on campus at school. That might sound ridiculous, but I do get Quinn’s point of view. Quinn, David, and Adam are geeky kids. At that stage of your life, depending on your mindset, being one of the cool kids in high school is a big deal.

David made a lot of mistakes, but he’s a good hard working guy. He wanted to find a way to pay for his tuition at MIT without his mother, Kathy (Amy Landecker) selling the house, or having to overwork herself to pay for it. And he wanted to finish building the time machine to honor his dad, a man who died when David was still a small child.

There’s a solid heartfelt story here, with a cast of likable characters. Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D’Elia, and Sam Lerner delivered solid performances, especially Weston. There’s a strong sense of urgency during the finale, when David finally realizes he’s made a huge mistake, and Weston’s believable panicky and distraught hysterics are fantastic. 

Project Almanac is a decent enough time travel movie, and it also works as a coming of age story with the high school life side of things. The problem is, the found-footage POV gimmick is the only unique aspect for Project Almanac, and there’s noticeable problems for how they use it. I pointed this out earlier, but once David decides to go back to Lollapalooza alone to fix things with Jessie, it’s just too easy to see where the story is going and how the ending will play out.

Rating- 5/10