Not as actionpacked as Total Recall and not as good as Memento...

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2002)

Not as actionpacked as Total Recall and not as good as Memento, but Vanilla Sky do have its own qualities.
--- May contain spoilers! ---
I haven't seen the film which this one is based upon (Abre los ojos (1997)), so I don't know what is changed and how much. However, Tom Cruise does a good job holding the pieces together, and I actually got surprised at the turning point in the film - something I haven't been by an American movies since... well, I can't remember ANY US-film that actually surprised me and really turned like this one did.
Vanilla Sky is much like a non-US-film (foreign film to you Americans!), in the way it tells its story and the pace. It is very non-American in a good way.
The story is not original though. The same story is told in Total Recall, and the setting (on Mars) works better there, since its a strange future world anyway. In Vanilla Sky the story (which doesn't unfold completely until about an hour in the movie) feels a bit unreal - actually EVERYTHING feels unreal! Yes, the sky IS Vanilla, and it too is very unreal. Of course everything is made so we shall doubt it, but why make it so obvious doubtable?
Not that Vanilla Sky doesn't work - it does. It is in many ways a very fine film. Especially the cast is impressive. Good choices to cast Cameron Diaz and Kurt Russell. They fit perfectly in their roles and make the story something remembarable, but Cruz is a bit, how shall I put it... boring?!
Cruise have made some really low and bad films lately. I didn't at all like Eyes Wide Shut, I thought that film was an overlengthed soft-porn. I mean, if you want to show naked people you can at least do it RIGHT. Eyes Wide Shut didn't have a point at all, but Vanilla Sky has!
The two films have some similarities when it comes to the first story that we totally belive in the first part of Vanilla Sky. We are told that Cruise's character, David, head of a large corporation has been framed by the evil board of directors; the Seven Dwarfs. This kind of conspiracy is something similar to the conspiracy in Eyes Wide Shut, but here it doesn't get silly and it actually have a very good point to hold the story together.
One bad thing about Cruise is that he creates very long movies. Usually I am a big fan of extreme-lengthed films, but only if it is needed to tell the story. THE STAND for instance work as a six hour movie (even though it was made for TV, it works as a movie) but both Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut and Cruise' Jerry McGuire are too long.
Vanilla Sky could have been shortened 15-30 minutes or so, especially in the beginning when it's painfully slow and doesn't really say anything interesting.
Vanilla Sky uses some visual tricks to tell its story. It twists and turns the timeline which is very useful to create confusion. This works better in other movies, like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and of course, Memento. In the end, Vanilla Sky uses these tricks just to impress, not to bring the film forward.
I was a bit afraid of a silly A.I.-kind of ending, but luckily they skipped it. I hated A.I. since it was awful and boring, and the end-scenes in Vanilla Sky has some similarities, but Vanilla Sky works better and faster and says what it needs to say in the few minutes the end unfolds.
If you want to see a fast cool film with brain-experiments and twists and turns, watch Total Recall. Its much better than Vanilla Sky in many ways. However, if you can't stand Arnold or don't want the violence, maybe you should go for Memento. If Memento is too confusing, then sure, Vanilla Sky is totally made for you!
I give it a 7 out of 10. Its a good movie, too long, but in the end very interesting.