An essentially good, albeit flawed, movie.

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2002)

Vanilla Sky had the potential to be a modern classic, but is let down by mediocre performances by its leading stars, Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz. Tom Cruise is not bad in this film, but never engrosses himself in his role to the level of Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia, where he captured a previously unimpressed sector of "serious" film fans. He's gone back to the bright, white-toothed Jerry Maguire mode, a more universally appealing, but shallower, character. However, the Achilles Heel of Vanilla Sky is the totally inept performance of Penelope Cruz. To be fair, this is the result of a hopeless miscast, as Cruz's acting limitations are only part of the problem. In the movie the director, Cameron Crowe, expects us to believe that the shallow, hedonistic David Aames (Cruise) would drop the salacious Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) like a ton of bricks for the Spanish cutsie, Sofia (Cruz).