Déjà Vu Times Two

Two movies in a row where déjà vu makes an appearance. Just the other day the happy little elves and I sat through our first ever DVD viewing of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure…

Mickey: I’m bad, Pee-wee. You don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I’m a loner. A rebel.
Pee-wee: Déjà vu.  

And in a completely different vibe, man, we’re now in the middle of Deja Vu, a sci-fi thriller starring Denzel Washington (or, as Sinbad would say, “Den-zale!”) Denzel gives a kind of strange mixed performance. He’s somehow even lower-key than his usual moody jaw-juttung self for most of it, but then he’ll suddenly toss out a line with a huge smile or shout it for no apparent reason. But then there’s not a lot to chew on in the script. They give him the hilariously porkly Val Kilmer to bounce against but nothing flares. His big shouting scene setting all the Feds and their geeks straight has an odd distance, like the director just set up the long shot and said, hey, this is Denzel, let me just record his awesomeness and leave it at that. Not as bad a part for Denzel as that horrible, and horribly mistitled, Out of Time, but close.

We’re in the middle of it because we watched the first half then took a little break, which included getting a night’s sleep,  going to work and having a few meals. The break was kind of forced on us because this is one of those thrillers that PUTS YOU TO SLEEP.  Several second act problems in this one. I mean, watching Denzel drive a car with a video camera on his head is only interesting for so long , even if he is following a guy in another dimension. Plus the Fed geek technician explanation for the time shifting phenomenon was clearly off the mark.  I mean, here they are they’re explaining bending space into wormholes and they don’t address time at all. Didn’t anybody notice?  It was really an insult to the elevated brain patterns of the sci fi fan. Either they had a good basis for the science and it was thrown out because the studio execs couldn’t understand it or they just took the short-cut through that important piece of screenplay terrain: “Oh, they’ll buy it because they’ve probably heard wormhole stuff like this many times.” Sorry.

We’ll see the rest of it through tonight. Why? Because Mrs Shears and I, we’re like that.  (Plus we’d probably both go home with Denzel. But only of he asked.)

We may have to wind it back a bit to see some earlier parts, though. 

Déjà vu!