I've been using the extra-long weekend afforded by Thanksgiving to catch up on a few movies. Last week, I saw Deja Vu, the new Denzel Washington movie.It may or may not be apparent to some of you who have seen the trailer or commercials for this movie, but this story is science fiction disguised as a mainstream movie. This isn't like Groundhog Day or something, where explanations for the warping of time aren't even mentioned -- no, they lay a lot of expositional pipe to justify the time-tripping MacGuffin at the heart of this movie. I don't know that it's really necessary, and it certainly felt out of place in a Denzel Washington movie, but at least they cram it all in in about three minutes, and then continue on with the movie.
As for that movie... what a letdown. I say that, because the first half is absolutely great. A+ material. Everyone I went to see it with was completely in agreement with this. There's a sequence near the middle of the movie involving a helmet (that'll be enough for people who've seen it to know exactly what I'm talking about, while tipping nothing for those who haven't) -- everything up to and including this sequence was on course to be perhaps the best movie of the year.
Everything after that was complete, non-sensical crap. They veer off the spirit of the concept, start violating the "rules" set-up in this narrative, and abandon everything for obnoxious, paper-thin allegories to recent real-life acts of terrorism as they plow their way to a stupid Hollywood ending.
It came as no surprise to me to look on IMDB after the fact and learn that there are two writers credited on this movie. This is one of the clearest cases of one writer re-writing another's draft that I can ever recall seeing. I'd wager the "splice" comes right at the halfway mark, where a new writer was brought in to give the studio the changes it wanted to the ending.
If only the movie had stayed the course, it would have been an easy A. As it stands... I think it rates around a C+. I almost want to recommend that people see it anyway (on video, at least) so they can know just what I'm talking about, and appreciate the movie that might have been here.
I'm going to get SPOILERY now, so those of you who haven't seen it and don't want to know more, it's time to go. For the rest of you, here's the exact nature of my complaint.
The movie starts out with the premise that it's only possible to observe the past, not travel into it. That's just a neat way to tell a mystery story. Then they start to violate that premise just a bit by allowing small objects (a hand-written note) to be sent back in time. I was starting to get nervous at this point, but then it turned out that the note they sent back trying to change the past only resulted in the main charcater's partner getting killed, as we'd already learned he had been. That suggested a neat "pre-destined paradox" that would have also been interesting to see -- how did these investigators actually end up causing the tragedy they're trying to prevent?
But then the wheels came off the wagon -- they sent Denzel Washington's character back into the past. And sure, it made for a few neat explanations after the fact (like how certain clues earlier in the movie came to be there), but it totally messed up the nature of the story. The investigation was no longer limited in how it could pursue the solution to the mystery. The constraints that had made this tale different from other time travel-ish stories were completely lifted, and so it became just like all the other time travel-ish stories.
Worse than those stories, actually, because this story's internal logic fell apart after the main character journied to the past. The evidence he'd been at the apartment "the first time around" was explained by his arrival "the second time around," except that the second time around, he goes on to save the girl and save the day! If indeed he did that, and the evidence shows he was there "the first time around," then how did the explosion even happen the first place?
All just to get to a lame Hollywood ending where DW gets the girl and lives happily after. Damn. Whichever writer wrote the first half, my hat's off to you. To the other -- shame on you.
3 comments:
After this crew put together something as well done and fun as Man On Fire, you almost think that they were going to go down that same road of unexpected coolness again. But then as the good Dr. says, that unexpected road somehow led to the interstate onramp of crap.
A friend on mine in LA was forced by business to leave the movie right before Denzel is sent back...and she loved the flick up to that point.
My advice to her was to never ever watch that last 40 minutes and remember what a good movie it was up to that point. :P
I'm confused, Evan. Is the original premise that they can observe the past but no interact with it? You wrote the opposite then complained when the interaction happened.
Perhaps the original second half exists in some form somewhere and will be resurrected in a future renegade edit. Hopefully it won't take as long as the new (old) Superman II.
Funny what one little typo will do. (Now fixed.) The original premise was that you could only observe the past, and NOT interact with it. Which was interesting. But the more they backpedaled from that premise, the more conventional and boring the movie became.
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