Starring: Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer
Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer
Studio: Touchstone Pictures 53982
Video: 2.40:1 enhanced for 16:9, 1080p HD
Audio: English Uncompressed 5.1 (48K/16-bit); English/French/Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Extras: “Surveillance Window:” Behind-the-scenes at all the big moments in the film with the filmmakers, including the chase, ferry explosion, time window design, stunts, the cameras etc. (37 min.); 5 deleted scenes; 3 extended scenes; Movie Showcase (instant access to scenes best demonstrating Blu-ray hi-def image & sound)
Length: 126 minutes
Rating: ****
I must confess to being a sci-fi fan and my favorite type of sci-fi is that dealing with time travel – perhaps a result of my Swiss ancestry. So naturally I liked Déjà Vu and didn’t agree with some of the negative reviewers, one of whom called it a steroid-injected B movie. Washington is a federal agent investigating the horrible explosion on a New Orleans ferry which killed hundreds of people. This was the first feature film shot in New Orleans since Katrina.
His character seems to be tracking down the terrorist who did the deed better than the local authorities, so they take him to a high-tech secret government lab where they unsuccessfully try to convince him they have a sort of super-surveillance system. The agent soon realizes the gadget can really look back into time and demands details. His interest is not only to try to prevent the explosion from happening but also to save a beautiful woman who was originally killed by the terrorist who stole her car to carry the explosives onto the ferry.
I suppose any time travel plot has some sizeable holes in it, and this one has plenty, but if you just coast along with the mind-binding turns and twists it seems to work as a fairly engaging thriller/action movie. The behind-the-scenes extras go into the efforts the filmmakers made to balance the sci-fi and the scientific fact. Well, the facts lost, but don’t hold that against Déjà Vu. The movie is a bit long, so you might not want to look behind all the scenes the same evening you view the feature. Acting is fine, especially Washington.
The transfer is also fine, and though the film didn’t make a great deal of use of the New Orleans environment, it was nice to see some of the French Quarter and other areas in hi-def. The ability to access some of the menu on the side of the screen during the movie is a nice feature of Blu-ray, and worked perfectly on my Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player – which also provided plenty of shake-em-up deep bass action on the explosions, boats, copters, and gunfire. I had thought the uncompressed mixes were going to all be 96K/24-bit, but the 48K/16-bit sounded good enough.
– John Sunier
