A great cast deliver an excellent story in top form.

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2004)

Vanilla Sky is an excellent adaptation of the Spanish film Abre los Ojos (open your eyes, which I have also seen). What Vanilla Sky has over the original is excellent performances from all its cast members. Along with Magnolia, this is probably Tom Cruise best performance, I am not a great fan of his commercial work, but you have to respect the man here. His facial expressions are a joy to watch in every shot, it is a great, underrated performance, like George Clooney's performance in Solaris. Cameron Diaz also shines as the 'villain'. I agree with a reviewer here which says that the music was distracting, even though the soundtrack is excellent, it is not appropriate, it seems as if Crowe is trying to make a video of every sequence. However do not let this minor issue stop you from seeing this movie. One of the great things about Vanilla Sky is that although the movie may seem confusing to some, everything is brought together at the end WITHOUT CHEATING. Many movies nowadays tend to get away from a straight narrative, nothing wrong with that, but with a script so full of holes that you could not put it together even with crazy glue, using the BS excuse that they will 'leave it up to the viewer to figure out what they really mean' or 'if you look carefully, it is all there'. Not here. In short, a great surprise from a movie I was not expecting much. 8/10