Disappointing farewell for Stanley Kubrick-a movie that was overpromoted

Rating: 6/10 (17 October 2001)

Stanley Kubrick was a director who was said to have made a number of masterpieces among his movies.I don't consider "Eyes Wide Shut" to be
among them.
Although Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman(who is nicely photographed in this movie,although some of the shots of her become tiresome after a while)were still married in real life when this movie was made, they appear to lack passion together in this movie.
When I first found out about this movie,I went to see it in the movies and walked out part of the way through because I found it
to be too slow and not interesting.I saw it on video,however,and although it seemed slightly less slow on tape than it did in
the theater,it is still a disappointing movie,I think,for several
other reasons.
1) It is a movie that could have been a half hour shorter and been more effective. 2) The plot is not all that strong;Cruise's sexual odyssey is not an overly big deal in that more doesn't happen with him
than does,although he is on that odyssey in reaction to what his wife DIDN'T do with the sailor.Also,the last third of the
movie rings flat,especially with the scenes where the mask that Cruise wore at the orgy is in bed next to Kidman and where
Cruise met with Sydney Pollack at the end(which was a weak "wrap up" scene,so to speak.) 3) Although the women looked fairly good and there was a lot of nudity and sex in this movie,it WAS NOT a movie that was erotic,in my opinion.I think that the promotion for this movie was in OVERKILL mode over how erotic this movie was going to be.It was a cold movie and not anything that would be that exciting,so to speak.The orgy scene was more weird than anything that would be a turn on,not to mention that the music is overbearing. 4) Finally,the ending was one of those scenes that could be described as a case of "What?".That was a weak ending to a movie that is on the ridiculous side and seems to have run out of steam before the end.
In short,this was not a terrible movie,but not the greatest of endings for Kubrick's career and a disappointing movie for both Cruise and Kidman,although they both can act very well and have done so in their movies.I give this movie a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.
One final comment on "Eyes Wide Shut",DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! well.The story was not there for them this time.