Abre Los Ojos is better

Rating: 4/10 (4 February 2005)

Vanilla Sky is the Hollywoodized, dumbed down version of Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). And a lot louder. It's not bad for being a Hollywood movie, but its merits come from what it mercilessly rips off from the original. It even copies shots, editing, and formats (even a flash-black in grainy black and white!). And PenÃ©lope Cruz plays the same role in both.
I consider myself intelligent enough to figure out the plot without being hit in the head with it, so I prefer the more obscure, ambiguous original. It's also a lot more suggestive, rather than the expensive, explicit Vanilla Sky. There is no ILM in Spain, so they make up for the lack of special effects with interesting gaps and well constructed suspense.
Overall, I believe this is a meddling remake, which does not really add much interesting material to the original (nor get rid of its flaws). It's on the line of the Psycho remake, and we know how that turned out.
Yet I am Spanish, so there's also a bit of a bias here. Only a bit, though.