Stanley Kubrick's Final film is, Ironically, the Only One of His That I Didn't Love.

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2007)

** out of ****
Stanley Kubrick's final film is a sexual thriller about a couple who grow apart due to one admitting lusting after a man that neither she had ever met. Her husband goes mad with jealousy and dashes out into the decrepit streets of what appears to be New York, looking for sexual escapism. When he gets involved with a sketchy sexual cult of some sort, he realizes that he is way over his head and must find the effort to go back to his loving wife and try to patch things up, or to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Being that I'm not a big fan of either Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman, I'm not totally surprised that I didn't like this film. But I felt that they did a fine job in this film, so it's not because of them that i don't like it. the reason i didn't like it was because i didn't find the plot to be either very interesting or particularly believable at all. I love thrillers, but for a thriller, this film doesn't work too well at establishing any sort of immediate danger. There are moments of threatening toward a separate character, but all the danger takes place off screen.
I did, however, love the production design and the musical score. These are aspects of film that Kubrick has always been able to master, however, and it shouldn't really come as a surprise. It just concerns the film as to whether all this beauty was right for this kind of film. Personally, I would have rather had the film not have so much beauty since this is a rather dark and ugly story the film is telling. It just feels out of place.
Overall, despite it being a disappointment for myself, I'd still recommend the film to fans of his, or to fans of sexual thrillers. I would not, however, recommend this film to fans of Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman, unless you will still love them even when they are being total douche bags to each other.
Rated R for strong sexual content, nudity, language and some drug-related material.