Kubrick ends career not with a bang but a whimper.

Rating: Null/10 (20 September 1999)

I went to see Eyes Wide Shut with an open mind, I wanted to enjoy it, I wanted Kubrick's last film to be as good as I know he could be... ...but I can't bring myself to be particularly positive about this movie. Over-long, over-laboured, and certainly over-hyped, it manages to bring out the worst performances in an otherwise talented cast. It looks great, as you would reasonably expect, but a movie needs more than sets, costumes, and photography. There were no surprises, because everything was so clearly signalled and tediously contrived. The repetitive hard-hit piano note which was the leitmotif of the soundtrack only emphasised Kubrick's repetitive battering of the film's themes.
I can deal with "difficult" films... I'm quite happy to be challenged... I'm delighted to have to watch a film again in order to fully unravel it... but this is just hogwash. There is no hidden depth - don't assume that painfully constructed obscurity is synonymous with deep meaning and the final outpourings of a tortured genius. Maybe it's just crap...
It isn't the worst film I've ever seen, but for a director and cast of this quality it is extraordinarily bad. There is nothing in this work that hasn't been explored in a more satisfactory and considerably briefer form elsewhere. All in all, this movie appears to be aimed at an audience cursed with a total lack of mental alacrity, but well endowed with an exceptional degree of patience.
Very very very disappointing.