Meant to get people to watch "Open Your Eyes"

Rating: 7/10 (28 January 2002)

The film makers intentions for this movie must have been for people to see it and then see "Open Your Eyes," so the audience can see how it was supposed to be made. "Open Your Eyes" (Abre Los Ojos) is a far superior picture mainly because of the differences in focus. In "Vanilla Sky," scenes were drawn out way too much, and important scenes lost their impact to the hip music and style that populated the remake. The original is an odd, creepy film that never loses focus and keeps you thinking for days. However, "Vanilla Sky" tried to explain too much, tried to add emphasis on too much, and ultimately failed.
I love Cameron Crowe: Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire, and Say Anything (in order from best to worst) are all terrific. Thus, I can only imagine that he made this film not in order to make a good movie but in order to get an audience for the far superior original (he's succeeding). I will say that overall I enjoyed "Vanilla Sky," but since I had seen "Abre Los Ojos" before, I was disappointed by the fact that it could have been better. (SPOILER?) By the last ten minutes, I just wanted it to end so that I could hear Paul McCartney sing.