A happily confusing lark

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2006)

Vanilla Sky is either a disappointment when viewed against Indie Film standards, or a happily confusing lark when compared to the unending deluge of big budget / low-minded Hollywood that's released weekly.
On the plus side, we find a movie that engages the viewer and the mind. A movie that is certainly confusing at first sitting, it is that rare commodity: the movie we like to talk about later. Like Memento or Barton Fink, people will find themselves dissecting the minutiae of the film after it's over.
Also impressive is the fact that Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood's famed pretty boys, spends at least two-thirds of the film either hidden under a mask, or horribly disfigured. Not a role many other actors would jump to take.
On the down side, Vanilla Sky, (a re-make ?) is basically an Art House or Indie film starring a big Hollywood actor. What could have been an interesting view on the hidden nature of man, or alternate/multiple realities, or even a study on the nature of reality itself, instead ends up like an art house rip-off of Total Recall.
Rating: B- / C+
FYI: 1) When did the universe change so much that "Banky" from Chasing Amy could get a lead role playing opposite Tom Cruise? 2) When did Penelope Cruz get the role of Indecipherable Speaker, ala Brad Pitt in Snatch or Fenster in The Usual Suspects? 3) When did Paul McCartney last have a decent single? Here, with the title track.