Déjà Vu

A New Orleans ferryboat full of U.S. marines and their families is blown up but good by an unknown bomber. When hard-charging ATF agent Doug Carlin (Washington) discovers a link between the explosion and the gruesome mutilation-torture-murder of a pretty girl (Patton), he’s invited to collaborate with a secret task force led by Greenwood and Kilmer. The squad possesses a magical technology that lets them spy and eavesdrop on pertinent stuff that happened four days in the past—Patton taking a shower, for example.

Initially, the team tells Carlin that it’s all done with satellites and computers, but when he calls their bluff they acknowledge taking liberties with the space-time continuum. Overriding the squeaking protests of the team’s physicist (Goldberg), Carlin demands to be sent back through the wormhole in the hope of saving the girl and foiling the terrorist (Caviezel), a local no-goodnik of the survivalist-libertarian stripe.

Moronic, soulless, flashy and crashy even by the vapid standards one associates with director Scott (Man on Fire) and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Déjà Vu is notable only for its rigorously stupid approach to the now wearisome paradoxes of time travel. That, plus the perfected crassness of the end title that reads “This film is dedicated to the strength and enduring spirit of the people of New Orleans.” No doubt the Big Easy will sleep a little easier for that. (Opens Fri; see www.timeout.com/chicago/nowplaying for showtimes).—Cliff Doerksen