Confusing Vanilla Ice

Rating: 3/10 (17 December 2001)

Abre Los Ojos, the original film this movie is based on, was made
a couple of years before The Matrix (yet, premiered in the States in
1999 as well), it was a well balanced murder-thriller with a bit of
the existential matters, and what-is-real questions the Matrix
unintentionally address. No wonder it found fans here in the U.S.,
like Tom Cruise, but unfortunately, what happens in every
European film that is translated into an American movie (with the
exception of The Birdcage, and maybe Scent of a Woman) the U.S.
version always falls short. Mainly because they're usually
dumbed-down for American consumption (Point of No Return, The
Vanishing to name a couple).
But not Vanilla Sky, which is actually done by a good director. The
problem with Vanilla Sky is that the director makes a mess out of
the original script, indulging too much on parts of it not meaningful
to the story, a cool soundtrack and maybe assuming people saw
the first so he could play with this one. The result is a confusing
film that doesn't know where it wants to go.
(Spoiler alert)
A key element of the plot is the concept of cryogenics, which is not
something so complicated to explain as seen in Abre Los Ojos,
and this year's A.I., Artificial Intelligence. It's not new, and it's even
practiced in real life. Somehow Vanilla Sky makes a lousy job
explaining it, calling it "Life Extension" and a lot of chit chat about a
defrosted dog that has little to do with the idea (storing your body in
a freezer for a future when a cure for your disease is found). I
repeat: this is a key element of the plot. You make this confusing;
the whole movie gets more difficult to understand. This was not
only the only thing messed up to make the plot more confusing.
The original kept the audience on the edge, making it wonder to
the very end if the weird stuff going on is a nightmare, or the main
character has really gone wacko. Vanilla Sky goes for the
"nightmare" theory, which leaves some parts unexplained (like why
the main character prefers to be interrogated with his mask on),
again, making it confusing.
I'm still surprised though the remake didn't work. The casting was
excellent, New York City as the setting is perfect, the soundtrack,
as in any Crowe film, kicks butt, and the story is faithful to the
original in many ways. The confusing stuff is what made it a
disaster at the end.