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Avg. Critic Score: 59 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 Iffy for 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 80
    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. Read full review

  • 80
    Variety |

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

  • 80
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    What is interesting is not how little sense Dj 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. Read full review

  • 75
    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. Dj Vu is generic enough to have been filmed anywhere. But it happens to be set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Read full review

  • 70
    Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern

    Dj 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. Read full review

  • 58
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Dj 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. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today |

    Dj Vu cannot escape the weight of its murky science, action-film formula and preposterous ending. Read full review

  • 50
    San Francisco Chronicle | Ruthe Stein

    A needlessly complicated and confusing thriller. Read full review

  • 40
    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. Read full review

  • 30
    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. Read full review

View more reviews for Deja Vu on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ Violent terrorism thriller isn't meant for kids.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this violent thriller has been targeted more at adults than kids, but some teens will be interested. With the movie's terrorism storyline, it's not surprising that there are explosions, car crashes, fights, and shootings -- which result in burned, bloody, beaten, and drowned bodies. Weapons include knives, guns, bombs, and vehicles. In one scene, scientists and authorities watch voyeuristically as a woman undresses and showers in her apartment. Characters argue loudly and discuss motivations for terrorism alongside religious faith, and in one sad scene, a father grieves his daughter's murder. The language is very tame for a PG-13 film.
  • Families can talk about the concept of déjà vu: How does it provide a dramatic hook for a movie? What are the characters' different motivations (revenge, self-sacrifice, desire, revulsion, science, faith, etc.)? How do different motivations lead to different results? Families can also discuss the possibilities of time travel. What would you change about your own behavior if you could go back in time? Did you know this movie was about time travel before you saw it? Do you think marketers and producers consciously chose to downplay that angle? Why?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Authorities lie to Doug to solicit his help; a plainly disturbed terrorist believes his cause (mass murder) is justified to prove that he's fit for military service. On the plus side, the hero is utterly noble.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: The film opens with a harrowing scene of a terrorist attack on a ferry (explosion, flames, bloody bodies on fire and floating in water), which is later repeated; weapons include guns, bombs, knives, and plier-cutters; Claire's dead body is seen at the morgue (burned, fingers cut off, bloody); bloody rags in sink; ATF agent shot/burned by villain; lengthy car chase (cars crash and flip); hero shot through windshield; kidnap victim with a bag on head is doused in gasoline (about to be burned); villain shoots guard on ferry; time-travel machine results in violent permutations of traveler's face/figure.
  • sex false0 Sex: Images of Claire in some states of undress as she's watched by the investigators.
  • language false0 Language: Minor language ("rat's ass").
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Cigarette smoking (by coroner in morgue and by villain during interrogation); quick joke about "smoking hash."
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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