Receptions
Déjà Vu opened to mixed reviews. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is rated 57% fresh,similar to the website Metacritic, which assigned the film a normalized rating of 59 out of 100 based on the reviews of thirty-two professional critics.Joel Siegel of ABC News disapproved of the movie on basis of the scientific elements of the storyline,as did Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, who additionally found the depiction of parishes decimated by Hurricane Katrina "vulgar."Todd Gilchrist from IGN rated the movie eight out of ten, calling it a "bravura set piece," despite the presence of an "inappropriate dénouement;"likewise, Michael Wilmington of the Orlando Sentinel rated the film three out of four stars, citing the "good cast, Tony Scott's swift direction, and unyielding professionalism" as rationale for his rating.Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times denoted the movie as a "sci-fi staple for generations."
Film writers and director
Both Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii acknowledge that the movie was not filmed the way they had wanted it to be, shifting the blame to director Tony Scott and his goal to focus more on the action aspect of the film than on the more meaningful plot the screenplay had called for. Marsilii, although "quite critical of the mistakes made," said he was proud of the finished product. Rossio, however, was so put off during filming that he, as of May 2008, had not seen the film. Rossio complained that Scott had ignored the inclusion of important plot details from the screenplay whenever "there was something he wanted to do" instead. "When the director is wrong the picture is pretty much doomed," Rossio stated. In the DVD commentary, Scott admits that he thought he did a mediocre job shooting Déjà Vu.
Rossio and Marsilii believe that many of the negative reviews of Déjà Vu are a direct result of Scott's direction of the movie, and have stated that "Tony Scott added nothing to Déjà Vu and made several hundred small mistakes and about eight or nine deadly mistakes," which makes the movie seem like it has many unforgivable plot holes, when it shouldn't have had any. "There are no plot holes at all, and scrutiny reveals the plot to be air tight." says Rossio. "We had years to think of all this and work it out." It was felt there were many misunderstandings that Scott's take on the plot introduced into the film. In his own defense, Scott cited in an interview with Iain Blair of BNET that only nineteen weeks were provided for the production of the film, which "isn't a lot for a film like Déjà Vu."