Interesting and thought-provoking, but missing key elements

Rating: Null/10 (31 October 2011)

I have read a lot of 9 or 10 star and 1 or 2 star reviews of "Eyes Wide Shut" and very few in the middle. This is clearly a polarizing film.
My view is that it is classic Kubrick - thought provoking, controversial, and visionary with good cinematography. But the movie lacks a couple if critical elements. The first being good acting.
Cruise has never been one of my favorites. There are only a few movies where I would praise his acting. Kidman is more of the opposite, mostly good acting with only a few stinker performances. This movie seemed to be on the bad acting scale for both of them. They looked uninspired and going-through-the-motions for most of the movie. Their scenes where they are upset or crying were completely unbelievable.
Another part of the movie that bothers me is the score. The gloomy score that repeats throughout the movie sounds like a more redundant rip-off of the Halloween score. And it is used way too much during the movie. The first few times it does a good job at setting the tone, but after that it's just repetitive and distracting.
In the whole, it is potentially a great movie that is undermined by a number of flaws (only two are mentioned here). It could have been so much more.
I have watched it several times, always hoping for more, seeing something new each time, but also feeling that it could have been much more.