A brave effort but it has too many "ifs" and "buts"

Rating: 4/10 (14 December 2001)

Crowe is a proven winner at his craft and with a super star cast, how can anything that gets on the screen be anything less than super?
The answer is:......Go see Vanilla Sky. First at 150 odd minutes it wears on the most devoted fans. The "formula" films that are the "rage" of Hollywood run the usual 95 to 110 minutes and they hit the demographic marks for all the well known reasons.
Vanilla Sky does none of this and I want so much to applaud that notion "but" in this case it really confuses at first. If the Cruise and Cruz dynamics is not real I can buy the popcorn next time. She is beautiful and he is .....well even disfigured he looks like a winner.
Perhaps there might have been ways to visit "Abra Los Ojos" with less license. If other folk's work is to be emulated, it seems that a holistic view would have been better instead of stealing the star and copping out the ending. Oh well, if there is to be real change in Hollywood toward works that take chances and ask the viewer to engage their mind as well as their emotions, then efforts like Vanilla Sky need to be supported. So I say go see it. Don't let anyone "spoil" it for you before you do, and just let it flow for awhile and it will sort of grow on you. No awards are in order for cast nor others but it is still a brave effort.