A sad bookend for a great Director

Rating: 2/10 (13 June 2008)

As I read through the comments, I have to wonder what is wrong with movies. When something this enervated gets made and discussed seriously, you want to laugh. But you're too aghast to do that, so you just keep watching. If Kubrick wanted to blow the lid off of sex, he's about forty years late. If he wanted to shock you with the idea that women love sex and fantasize about it, then again, I feel that he must have been locked in an emotional prison the last few decades. As with Full Metal Jacket, the ideas and themes are woefully out of date and overdone by the time Kubrick gets to them. Have you ever seen a movie about sex that showed it so clinically? And for god's sakes, it's supposed to be about a sex club, where is the heat. And then there they are just sparks from earlier movies. When Cruise goes to buy his costume, the shop's daughter is a flirty tease, a new Lolita? It's a yawn. And what of the casting of Cruise and Kidman. Did it add the personal touch that Kubrick was hoping for? I don't think so, because Kidman's character is so brittle and shrill and Cruise is down in the dumps. These two may not sex, but they certainly need some yoga. And if you take it, as some have written here, as some great work of art, what the hell what would you take from that? That sex is universal? That you should never go to a sex club unprepared? There are many moments when laughter is induced due to Kubrick's arch staging. My favorite is when Cruise is constantly being warned that he's in danger. Of course, since both he and the girl warning him, are wearing masks, you don't really catch much emotional weight. But it's funny to listen too the girl just the same.