I saw Deja Vu not too long ago and got to do a movie review for it. This is what I wrote:

Denzel Washington (known for such sports movies as Remember the Titans and Hurricane) plays a detective trying to get to the bottom of who is responsible for an explosion that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on a boat in New Orleans. He plays the role of the ambitious, dedicated detective called to the scene to investigate. He goes along the usual path of evidence gathering, until he's asked to join an elite – and secret – task force just assembled for which this disaster is its first task.

It is here where the script unveils its central plot device, a high-tech "surveillance" system, which is eventually revealed not to be a surveillance system at all, but a way to digitally recreate images from anywhere exactly four days and six hours in the past, provided it falls within the "target area." Nevermind how this is possible - there's an explanation involving wormholes or "Einstein-Rosen bridges" and folding time on itself, the fact is the characters can use knowledge of the present to try to look in the right places in the past to find clues for the future.

Of course, it doesn't end there, as Washington figures out that they can do more than just "look" into the past – they can actually manipulate the past and even send back objects, and indeed himself – hence travel back in time to try to change the past and attempt to avert the disaster.

While watching this movie, you'll get that sense that you've seen this before. That's because it's been done before. The plot develops similarly to a number of movies involving time travel, most notably 12 Monkeys. And like so many others, it suffers from the inevitable paradoxes inherent in most stories in which a character travels back in time. (He goes back in time to stop an event – but if the event does not occur, he has no reason to travel back in time.)

Another thing that will seem familiar, but in a good way, is the fact that it's a typical Jerry Bruckheimer movie, with elaborate and entertaining action scenes, though not much in character development. And it has a certain style to it that's typical of a Tony Scott-directed picture, and it was the first movie shot in New Orleans post-Katrina.

There are some original aspects, in terms of the technology employed, which leads to one especially fun highway chase scene – a Bruckheimer special, but with a twist. Washington, while employing some time-shifting goggles has to navigate a highway both in the past and present – you have to see it to understand.

One major disappointment was the absence of the very thing that made the prospect of the movie so intriguing: an alternate theory on deja vu. I was waiting for a scene in which a character - preferably Washington's – has a moment in which he senses that "phenomenon" of deja vu, but we later learn that it is not just a trick of the mind, but something entirely different, where you go "wow" because it's explained by technology or the results of time travel. Sadly, such a scene is lacking.

Also lacking was a good explanation of why the antagonist, played by Jim Caviezel, does what he does. Caviezel plays a callous, yet troubled terrorist. It's amazing that the man who played a compassionate Jesus in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ could play such a cool, stone-faced killer, but he does it with precision and a certain degree of mystery. Unfortunately, mystery around his motives remains.

One line in the movie, which is prominent in the trailer, delivered by Caviezel is "You think you know what's coming? You have no idea." As entertaining as the movie was, it would have been nice to have found out what he was talking about.

Despite a couple disappointments, overall it was an entertaining movie and worth the $12 to go see on the big screen.