NEW Orleans used to be the prime destination for films that required a finetuned atmosphere. But the post-Katrina New Orleans of Tony Scott's latest technothriller is barely evident, overlaid with buzzing helicopters and a thick testosterone glaze.

Denzel Washington (who also starred in Scott's previous Man on Fire) is on autopilot as detective Doug Carlin investigating the terrorist bombing of a ferry with hundreds of navy servicemen on board. To solve the case, the FBI lets him in on its secret weapon . . . technology that allows them to look into the past (four days and six hours to be exact) using Einstein-like bends in the time-space continuum. If that doesn't sound loopy enough, Carlin then falls in love with the images beamed back of Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), a beautiful woman who was killed mysteriously on the same day and whom he vows to save.

Unlike Minority Report, which Steven Spielberg cunningly set in the near future, Scott gambles that setting his science fiction tale in the present will mine a deepfelt post-9/11 anxiety. But the suspension of disbelief topples like a pack of cards. Deja Vu is a visually kinetic action movie . . . Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer maintain their Ronseal reputation. But the half-baked sci-fi plot twist . . . a direct steal from Chris Marker's influential artfilm La Jetee . . .

disappears in space and time up its own wormhole.

Grounded (Paul Feig) Lewis Black, Wilmer Valderrama, Tyler James Williams, Dyllan Christopher.

Running time: 90 mins . .

CHRISTMAS hokum for kids. A brother and sister are dropped off at the fictional Hoover airport by their mother to fly out to meet dad for Christmas. But snow falls and the planes are grounded leaving the kids to run riot with a bunch of fellow brats . . . each a tired example of American stereotype: an overachieving black boy, an immature fat kid, a beautiful rich girl and an angry trailertrash tomboy. They are all from broken families, and underneath the panic that they may not get home for Christmas lies a cynicism that divorce has destroyed Yuletide for children.

Thus the kids solve their own problems, forge their own kind of family and torment the stupid adults . . . a calamity of pantomime overacting. Grounded indulges kids' enjoyment of rampage . . . imagine it as a mix of Home Alone and Die Hard 2, only this time Bruce Willis's John McClane is not around to deal with the young terrorists.