A Disapointment

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2001)

Being excited once again to catch another Cameron Crowe flic yet again. The director who brought one of the greatest films of last year into being if not the best (Almost Famous), and the work of Jeremy Macguire, gives us a rework of a Spanish film named Abre Los Ojos (open your eyes).

However the results of this work pale in comparison unfortunatly to Crowe's previous glorious shining moments. This twighlight zone, dreamscape of a film ends up being not a fascinating memorable piece of work, but a tedious exercise. While everything seems to be there, good casting, good actors, and an intriguing story, it doesn't flow. It seems very choppy and more distintresting. Vanilla sky has the unfortunate habit of leaving the viewer stranded, instead of letting them hitch on a more intriguing ride.

Basicaly Tom Cruise is a rich kid with an easy life, and easy beautiful woman he lusts after on one side, until he falls for Penelope Cruz when she comes to his birthday party. As the film progresses we meet more characters, we are subjected to flashbacks, intercutting of scenes in the future, some in the past, all with that twighlight zone feel and leaving you disoriented (I can't describe more without giving away too much). In reality we as the viewer soon begin to realize that we see is not the whole truth as the film toys with the idea of is this real? or is it imagined? While this has been done greatly in films this year like Mulholand Drive, and the BRILLIANCE of films like Memento, Vanilla Sky leaves the viewer unwilling to even care. Too many of the scenes go on for far too long, and I lost interest several times. Many times I wanted this film just to end. The film does make sense to me and I don't think a second viewing would add to my experience, if anything the first viewing was more of a chore, its one thing to watch a film and be motivated and be awed on screen, than to sit through a disoriented piece with no connection.

Cameron really missed the ball on this one and it's unfortunate. His touch is there ecspecialy the incorporation of music and scenes (loved the opening scene of empty New York) but in the end this film fails. So many people in the audience just kept groaning within the last 45 minutes as the scenes and developments kept popping up. I felt their pain..
Rating 5 out of 10.