People tend to miss the point of Kubrick's films.

Rating: 7/10 (6 September 2001)

When Eyes Wide Shut was released in 1999, shortly after Kubrick's death, every critic panned the film, calling it static, cold and empty. Many people said that the performances where either dull, or just plain over the top. All I can think is "have these people ever seen any other Stanley Kubrick film". Kubrick didn't make films to accommodate narrative, look at 2001: A Space Odyssey or Barry Lyndon, and he definitely didn't make films for character purposes Kubrick made films about ideas.
Eyes Wide Shut is about the idea of jealousy, it's about sexual paranoia in the home, its about desires and longings. The narrative is non-substantial, the film works better as a long form selection of vignettes that befall Bill (Cruise) through his dark night on the town, and with this in mind it's no wonder that people have hailed the film as "1999: A Sexual Odyssey". Because in the same way that Kier Dullea was transformed into the star child, so is Dr Bill transformed into a better human being. The comparisons to 2001 are many, much like that film this also has Kubrick in a more optimistic mood. There's no dehumanisation here, this isn't A Clockwork Orange or Full Metal Jacket; Eyes Wide Shut is showing us that sometimes we take things for granted.
The film does however fall flat in the middle, and there are a couple of instances where Kubrick tries to sandwich in the message that `sometimes married couples have fantasies but in the end it's all okay', and I think this might have just been Kubrick panicking when the film went over budget, trying to make the story a little more acceptable. But this is on par with other films such as Dr Strangelove and Paths of Glory. And when you look back all Kubrick's films get negative reviews when they are first released, expect people to finally wake up to Eyes Wide Shut, sometime in the not too distant future.