Wonderful! Just keep Cruise out of the way

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2013)

One of the inexplicably underrated movies. Based on the ratings and reviews, I started watching Vanilla Sky reluctantly knowing that I would definitely be disappointed. However, and to my surprise, I was totally awestruck by the smart, dreamy story, the brilliant direction, and the out-of-this-world cinematography.
The only letdown though (and the reason behind the two missing stars in the rating) is Tom Cruise's stagy performance. He completely missed out on the soul of the character he is impersonating and turned it into a phony. I understand that David Aames is supposed to be shallow and irresponsible and that the movie is his journey towards self-realization and maturity. The point is that Cruise's overtly theatrical performance and overacting (to stress the character's clumsiness) detached me and kept reminding me that I'm watching a movie.
Still I have to watch the allegedly superior Spanish original (Abre Los Ojos) to make a better judgment, but I think Cameron Crowe did a wonderful job adapting this one.