A masterpiece? Of self indulgence maybe

Rating: 2/10 (10 April 2017)

How in just a few words presents itself the very last work of the supposed master of the cinema art, Mr. Stanley Kubrick? Plot holes; numerous. Rachitic and repetitive music, to the point of being annoying. Comedic thus completely out of place first of the two scenes at the costume shop. Very, very bad cheesy conversation with the masked woman at the orgy. Lack of proper pace and stretched scenes resulting in a completely unnecessary long screening time. To sum up: a failed movie. It is not like everything in it is bad, but overall it is a weak one
Some positive reviews say that all plot holes or artificial look of (staged) New York are to be a supposed hints at the dream nature of the events. But such claims are of equal value as those in regards to for example the bad lightning in "The Godfather" (1972), saying that it was done on purpose to underline the shady nature of Corleone family. But one of the actually good things in "Eyes Wide Shut" is Nicole Kidman. Unfortunately, she only has the supporting part while Tom Cruise on the other hand in his lead acting reverts way to often to that characteristic rascally wicked grin of his- a gimmick performed by him in probably half of his movies. And if you want to count as goodies "great tits" (to quote the movie), we do get to see a lot of them. But then again, the orgy itself does not go all the way and so does not hers sailor fantasy. there are both important and yet not fully utilized, thus this picture it a sexed up drama but with not enough sex in it. And also on the sexuality note: what was the purpose of that out of the blue scene of pedestrians shouting some homophobic slurs at the main character and that other later scene with a male hotel desk clerk clearly hitting on him? It is not explored further and probably only time will tell if that was the director laughing at gossips about Cruse's supposed homosexuality or was this the director shoveling them in the actor's face; or was this just another inconsistency of "Eyes Wide Shut"
The side of the movie dealing with the mystery of that whole orgy society instead of evolving into a full thriller just fizzled out with almost nothing. We do see some investigative work and some threats, but nothing really happens; while the paste continuous to be extremely slow. As for the marriage-adultery portion of the movie, it ends up with a confrontation / confession that the viewers do not actually get to see- contrary to what Tom Cruise says to his on screen and then also real life wife ("I'll tell you everything"). It is as if after two and a half hours of already edited up footage, Kubrick finally came to his senses and realized that the film is way too long; and so he decided to speed things up from that point, by cutting to the aftermath of this conversation. And that is truly disappointing, because the argument of the protagonist couple near the beginning had some real acting value in it. And also because it is a clear sign of laziness in script writing (just how many times do we see in movies, especially in comedies, a bold defiant statement that should be followed by extremely entertaining / interesting scene, but instead of that the filmmakers diffuse problems of difficult / sophisticated execution of it by simply jumping over it?)
To sum up: calling "Eyes Wide Shut" a masterpiece is a total misunderstanding. But if you do want to see a great piece of cinema work by Stanley Kubrick, then please go see his "Paths Of Glory" (1957) or the "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968); but that other one only to the point when the s-f ends and that colorful rambling begins. Because let us be honest- not everything what Kubrick did was extraordinary / important / engaging. And his last picture is an example of a painfully bad end to a long and profound career; seeing this movie for the second time, at least 15 years after the first screening, only made the boredom experience twice as hard to bear