Deja Vu

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's an ingratiating star vehicle and elegant entertainment.

Variety Staff (Not credited)

Cinema's natural felicities for time and action have seldom felt as beautifully dovetailed.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

Unlike the last Scott-Washington matchup, "Man on Fire," Deja Vu boasts a muscular, fast-forward story that won't be overwhelmed by Scott's need for speed in the form of rapid cuts and all that visual fusion that have become his stylistic trademark. Here, the approach is perfectly suited to the picture's time-shifting, multitasking structure.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What is interesting is not how little sense Déjà Vu makes but how little that matters. If you want your films to add up logically, you're welcome to take your calculator somewhere else. But if you do, you will be missing out on some first-class genre fun.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Denzel Washington plays Denzel Washington, good cop. This isn't a great performance, but Washington wasn't brought in to show off his acting chops.

Premiere Stephen Saito

Although the science fiction element had the potential to drag the story down, it's kept to a minimum and left somewhat buried in techno jargon.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Starts out a lot like an expensive-looking episode of "CSI" before morphing into a solidly entertaining time-traveling romance.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An utterly preposterous but entertaining sci-fi action brain-bender.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

This seemingly simple thriller has two subtexts, one more overt than the other, that should give pause to people who claim Hollywood is always too left-wing.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

You aren't likely to see a more ludicrous movie for the rest of the year. But rarely has such ludicrousness been used to pay tribute to a town in need of love. Déjà Vu is generic enough to have been filmed anywhere. But it happens to be set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's an almost overwhelmingly professional picture, murderously fast, slick and full of outlandish notions, painstakingly realized. And it's also surprisingly satisfying -- thanks to Washington, a good cast, Tony Scott's swift direction and that unyielding professionalism.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

This may be the first crime thriller to explicitly utilize superstring theory but, in its woozy romanticism, it's not that far removed from this year's other time-warp movie, "The Lake House," about two lovers living in parallel years - or "Frequency," which starred Jim Caviezel as a good guy.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The movie's biggest charm is its unpredictable, offbeat tone.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Déjà Vu is pretty dazzling, as action adventures go, even when it's wildly, almost defiantly, implausible. Movies can make us semi-believe the damnedest things.

Village Voice Nathan Lee

Déjà Vu isn't as sleek a genre pleasure as "Enemy of the State," but it does have a freaky little trick up its sleeve.

Newsweek David Ansen

It's preposterous, but never dull: Scott whips the action into a taut, tasty lather.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Déjà Vu has enough style and forward (or is it backward) momentum to viewers aroused. It's only after you leave the theatre that your head starts to throb.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The film is tense and engrossing. But it lacks exactly what the title advertises: the sense of inexplicable familiarity that should haunt you as the story unfolds and leave you all a-tingle when it ends.

Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand

Like "Man on Fire," the previous collaboration between Washington and Scott, Déjà Vu is stunning but poorly paced, a film that manages to be both captivating and frustrating.

Empire Adam Smith

Nobody does vapid bollocks as enjoyably as Tony Scott, and while this isn't as inventive as "Man On Fire" or as compelling as "Crimson Tide," it's still the right side of dumb.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Déjà Vu is watchable trash, meticulously edited in Scott's skip-stutter style, but there's something ultimately unsatisfying about a thriller that more or less makes up its rules as it goes along.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Rarely have Bruckheimer and Scott been so upfront about insulting people's intelligence.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It takes chutzpah to title this movie Déjà Vu; every scene in it rings a bell. Certainly, I had just seen the same affable-righteous performance from Washington in Spike Lee's "Inside Man."

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

A needlessly complicated and confusing thriller.

USA Today Scott Bowles

Déjà Vu cannot escape the weight of its murky science, action-film formula and preposterous ending.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The SF hardware (enjoyable) and thriller mechanics (mechanical) of this Jerry Bruckheimer slam-banger don't mesh very well with reflection, and the action trumps most evidence of thought.

The New Yorker David Denby

In brief, I fell cheated by these clever, narrative-disrupting films. They seem to miss the point. After all, every fiction film is magical--an artifice devoted to “What if?”

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

To believe Déjà Vu, or even to pretend you can actually follow it, you'll need heavy-duty gear -- harness belt, spelunking helmet, a great deal of rope, PowerBars for sustenance. A little coffee wouldn't hurt, either.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Deja Vu becomes increasingly sillier.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The joke of it is, for all the pricey bangs and booms, the whiplash cinematography and the editing that turns film space into cubistic tableaux, a Bruckheimer-and-Scott partnership is only as good as its screenplay, and this one is a mess.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Definition of redundant: A formulaic Hollywood pic that calls itself Déjà Vu.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

After 9/11, few of us look at terrorist acts casually. It's insulting to watch this grandiloquent pornography, using shock value and Hollywood cliche to evoke poignancy.