A not-so-subtle Abre Los Ojos

Rating: 7/10 (1 April 2002)

Because the plot of Abre Los Ojos was so strong, it's difficult to give this movie a terrible rating. I still enjoyed it and appreciated the romance and found it to be strangely magical in an urban kind of way. However, Vanilla Sky takes too many cues from Hollywood -- most prominently the utter lack of subtlety by which Abre Los Ojos was crafted. (slight spoiler) The cryogenics theme is introduced too blatantly, and it's spelled out in mindnumbing detail later in the movie. Tom Cruise's character is immediately stereotyped, whereas the protagonist in Abre Los Ojos had a playboy role that was more difficult to grapple with. Just like the color of Vanilla Sky versus Abre Los Ojos, everything is sharper, less ambiguous, and... louder! The music for the "derangement" scenes were all-out annoying and inappropriate, and seemed to last far too long.
I'm glad this movie was released, if only to prompt its viewers to watch the clearly superior original. At its heart, it's still a good tale that should at the very least get a strong reaction out of the audience. 7/10.