so much promise, unfulfilled...

Rating: 6/10 (12 December 2001)

This could have been a great movie, or at least a very good movie. Instead it ends up being merely an interesting so-so flick. Basic plot - David Aames (Tom Cruise) is a playboy millionaire living the good life, sleeping with his friend Julianna (Cameron Diaz) and playing tennis with his buddy Brian (Jason Lee). At a party he snubs Julianna and falls in love with Sofia (Penelope Cruz). Julianna exacts revenge by running her car off a bridge with herself and David inside, killing herself and disfiguring David. Weirdness ensues.
The movie tries to be a psychological thriller/drama, but moves way to slow. It loses its way distracted by scenes that don't advance the mystery, tension or plot. At around 150 minutes, the movie runs close to 30 minutes too long. Tightening up the movie would have done wonders for it, really.
The second major problem is the music - I've no idea what Crowe was thinking here. The music at parts is too loud and actually distracts from some of the more pivotal scenes in the movie.
The ending of the movie also left me feeling rather cheated. With a mystery like Mulholland Drive all the pieces start to come together and you see it all fall into place. Vanilla Sky is reduced to having one of the characters go into a ten minute speech explaining the entire 140 minutes that came before. Ugh.
In closing - a simple re-editing could improve the quality of the movie by a lot, removing the annoying soundtrack during certain scenes would help a little. Maybe we can hope for a new cut of the film when it hits DVD.