Bogs down in its own pretentions...

Rating: 1/10 (20 January 2002)

If you find inane dialogue witty, if disjointedness is your idea of a film on the cutting edge, if pretentiousness is your cup of tea, I give you VANILLA SKY. This movie bogs down in its own pretentions. Overdone and overlong, this one confounds the viewer to the very end (when the "cheat" ending becomes clear). Tom Cruise cruises through this one like a man truly stunned by the hammer, but it's just not enough. Especially given the aforementioned lamebrained dialogue (which is straight out of some dreadful made-for-tv movie). It's just not an engaging film on any level. Much better was JACOB'S LADDER (although that film, too, punked out in the end with a much-used cheat ending that undermined everything that came before).