Works Pretty Well if Taken as a Dream

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2000)

EYES WIDE SHUT (1999) * * 1/2 Kubrick, Kidman and Cruise spent the better part of a year making a movie with a moral as simple as "appreciate what you have at home (in this case a wife and kid) and don't venture out into unknown territory because there's a lot of evil and misery out there". Even with director Kubrick's notorious propensity for retake after retake, he obviously gave up on getting a convincing performance out of Cruise as a physician. He's as believable as Woody Allen playing a gladiator. Still, Kidman is good and Stanley Pollack is excellent in a supporting role, and if you take the movie as sort of like a dream it works pretty well.