The subconscious mind is a terrible thing to waste...

Rating: 4/10 (10 November 2005)

Post-hippie/yuppie-pothead smugness, done up like a "Twilight Zone" episode with a really large budget. Tom Cruise is a magazine publishing mogul in New York City who immediately seems to have a hard time distinguishing his reality from his dreams; soon, he finds himself imprisoned, masked, and talking to a doctor about a murder he has apparently committed. Proving that the greatest asset a film can possibly have is a strong screenplay, "Vanilla Sky" is a series of half-hearted whims and self-indulgent larks. The shards of reality and non-reality, interpolated in rapid succession, aren't so much truthful glimpses into our hero's mind as they are Cameron Crowe's cocky idea of a mind-screw. Crowe is like a jovial rich kid messing with the switches and his film is the equivalent of a joy-buzzer, both a curious paean to popular culture and the (would-be) ultimate brain-gasm. It doesn't make much sense in the end, and it doesn't elicit much interest either, mostly because 90% of the characters are cyphers. ** from ****