Simply awful- a waste of time

Rating: 1/10 (2 August 1999)

I've always felt that Kubrick's movies were a mixed bag- from 2001 to Full Metal Jacket there were compelling scenes and pointless, boring ones as well.
But it's a shame that this piece of utter garbage is what he'll be remembered for. There's no other way to say it.
One hundred and sixty five minutes of plotless, motionless movement that just had me begging for the end to come. The one thing that really bothered me about this movie is that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get myself to care about anything that happened on the screen. I can't say that about a lot of movies. As I walked out people asked me about certain aspects of the movie, and I just shrugged my shoulders and said "who cares?".
Kidman is basically used in this movie as a body and Cruise simply isn't made for roles like this. Throw him into one silly, irrelevant scene after another and we get a nearly three hour message on monogamy. Thanks, Stanley.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is a good movie by die-hard Kubrick fans- a spade's a spade. Just go to the movie theatre and ask a handful of people what they thought of the movie- some people will say they loved it (Kubrick fans) and the rest will likely say they hated it. If you go see it, let me be the first to tell you "I told you so.".