Déjà Vu

Time travel movies are tough, take it from somebody who wasted a large part of a decade trying to get one made. Science fiction films that really are science fiction, as opposed to comic book superheroes or space opera fantasy like Star Trek and Star Wars, is hard to sell, too, because you can count on critics who don’t understand it to call the whole thing preposterous and foolish, and talk archly about plot holes (without naming them) to conceal their own lack of comprehension and sheer ignorance. The fact is, this movie was just too damn complicated for most of the critics. Of course, all the talk about quantum wormholes is gibberish … but that’s what a lot of SF is, friends. At least such talk doesn’t defy physics, as all space opera does. You establish your parameters, and within those parameters you try to stay as logical as you can. This movie accomplishes that. If there are plot holes, I didn’t see them. (Part of that is that it moves so damn fast that you don’t have a lot of time to think it all over … but that’s not a bad thing, in my view.) Another thing almost all the critics mentioned with disdain is the way the filmmakers “exploited” the ruins of New Orleans. What? There is one scene in the ruined Ninth Ward, and that’s all the Katrina damage I saw. This film was scheduled to be shot in the Big Easy before Katrina just about killed it and George W. Bush shit on it. It was almost cancelled, but they decided to go ahead, and the people of New Orleans were thankful, you’d better believe it.