The higher you climb...

Rating: 5/10 (6 February 2002)

Heading into the last third of the movie, Vanilla Sky had plenty going for it. Consequently, it had plenty at stake and the final third of the film became one of the most frustrating, disappointing and underwhelming finales in memory. Two glaring complaints:
1. The dreamworld/reality plot labyrinth was foolishly summarized like a 3rd-grade book report... twice.
2. All that build-up, dreams piled on top of dreams, masquerading as a possible crime story, all the while instructing us not to take everything at face value... and all it amounts to is ____________ ?!!
No, I don't want to ruin it for everyone, but its almost as if Cameron Crowe wrote himself into a corner, grabbed the screenwriter's bible on coy-plot-developments-that-can-get-you-out-of-any-jam, and just plugged in the latest in hack sci-fi vision-of-the-future crap. A note to Crowe: If your entire film amounts to _________ , make sure you craft it in such a way that we care when we finally do find out. Or better yet, take advantage of the mesmerizing first 2/3rds by having it all amount to something original and thought provoking.