Great soundtrack, but...

Rating: Null/10 (15 December 2001)

...not the most entertaining two and a half hours I've ever spent. The music is fantastic; I would never in my wildest dreams think of knocking Crowe's ability to pick a soundtrack. Certainly, he proved his fluency in the language of rock 'n' roll in his semi-autobiographical Almost Famous (highly recommended). Crowe is a director of diverse talents, to be sure, and even his "teen flick" (though it was better than the label would suggest) Say Anything was skillfully done. However, the pacing of Vanilla Sky felt very awkward, among other things. The border between fantasy and reality was moved and trampled so many times that it became irrelevant, and this reviewer frequently found herself realizing that she was in a movie theatre watching something on a screen. Crowe's trademark pop culture cameos--the cover of Highway 61 Revisited, characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, etc.--were apparent but somehow ineffectual. By the end of the film, there was little, if any, empathy for Tom Cruise's character, although the scenery was a bit gnawed about the edges. Cameron, make the next one count; I haven't lost my faith in you yet.