Abre Los Ojos, Nalgas Tontas

Rating: Null/10 (1 February 2002)

* possible spoilers *
Imagine if the kid from `Almost Famous' grew up to remake `Fight Club', `Vertigo' and `A.I.' All at the same time.
Tom Cruise stars as the zillionaire playboy, who falls in love with overly-cute Penelope Cruz, thus earning the wrath of his casual girlfriend, Cameron Diaz. She drives her car off a bridge with Cruise in it, but is only successful by half. Then things get weird.
The movie has way too many glamour shots of Tom Cruise (Pretty Tom Cruise! Ugly Tom Cruise! Latex encrusted Tom Cruise!) and at least one red herring too many, but the main complaint that I've heard logged against the movies is that it's too confusing- which confuses me since the last 20 minutes of the movie are designed to carefully explain the previous 2 hours. In these final minutes, however, Cameron Crowe does manage to give Cruise's character a soul in just a few clever seconds: when he reveals that his waking dream world has been based on the album cover for The Freewheelin Bob Dylan, Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird and Truffaut's Jules and Jim, the choices are so pitch-perfect, that Crowe is able to transform the impression of Cruise being just an empty vessel.
Cruise and Diaz are serviceable in their roles. Cruz's cuteness gets old fast (she seems to be the spiritual sister of Ali McGraw in Love Story) and the really fine performance in the film is delivered by Kurt Russell as the paternal psychologist that Cruise creates for himself. He does Gregory Peck proud.
Overall, a movie that just isn't as experimental as it's hyped itself to be.