Vanilla Sky

A mostly fascinating, often frustrating, boldly uncommercial Hollywood version of a boldly uncommercial art film. It's very atypical of the previous work of both director and star, and it's as personal a film, I suspect, as Cruise will ever make.

Crowe's tantalizing film sticks with you.

Visually dazzling but ultimately dizzying ride, a trippy suspenser that gets tripped up on its own deja vu voodoo.

The film's aim -- to dazzle and inspire -- is sapped by Cruise's vein-popping, running-the-marathon performance.

Crowe preserves the original film's plot twists and turns, but his version lumbers when it should be whipping along, daring you to keep up. The wall-to-wall pop music soundtrack eventually becomes oppressive, and Cruise's oily smile doesn't really constitute a characterization.

Its tone is unquenchably pretentious, and its scale is overblown.

Overblown and idiotic, this new "erotic thriller" is neither erotic nor thrilling; it's long, boring and self-indulgent.

Extremely beautiful film! Seriously one of the best films I have ever seen! This is an original story, with a fantastic cast, and an even better sound track. This is a must see.

It has a good soundtrack? I really respect what “Vanilla Sky” is trying to do, weaving a complicated narrative, but it just doesn't gel. Perhaps a different editor could have built a more enjoyable experience out of the pieces. Even though I am a huge fan of Tom Cruise movies, he is just too "Tom Cruisie" in this one. I give it a C, if you've already seen the best, but you insist on watching a movie, try this one out.

Vanilla Sky is, fundamentally, a movie about lucid dreaming. And there is something about it that only lucid dreamers will recognize. Sadly, it's a bit downhill from there. While Vanilla Sky is a solid effort, it's unfortunately short of genius. The very project is a bit curious. Is Cameron Crowe, the permanent teenager responsible for perfectly good yet light-as-a-feather comedies like Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, up to the challenge of remaking a Spanish psychodrama? Crowe goes through the motions, and from time to time he proves that he can handle heavier material, but Vanilla Sky is too murky to be much more than a holiday distraction far from the cult classic that the original Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) has become. However... Cameron Crowe's DVD commentary track is one of the best I've heard. While he's overly proud of the middling achievement, he's honest about the tepid reaction from test audiences, and he does provide a little extra context for the various interpretations of the movie. (Also of note, this is the first commentary I've heard with a musical score: someone (Crowe's wife, Nancy Wilson) playing acoustic guitar. Crowe also phones up his stars during the recording... bizarre.) Unfortunately, none of this can make Penélope Cruz a good actress. An interview with songwriter Paul McCartney, two featurettes, and assorted trailers round out the disc. Vanilla Sky has moments of brilliance and bears a certain style, but the movie is neither simple enough for sheer popcorn-thriller fun nor complex enough for true psychodrama buffs. It lies somewhere in a middle ground, and anyone that tells you different... needs to open his eyes.

Some remakes are worse, I'm looking at you Old Boy, but this is still a bad remake **** foreign film. The film worked originally because of it's great story and unique twists. The Hollywood remake is predictably expanded upon in all the wrong ways, and feels more like a product than art. Because of the inventiveness of the original, this remake is still pretty good. But, they made it worse due to some of the bad writing and directing, which is not cool, man!

Je ne l'avais pas revu depuis un bout de temps et le souvenir que j'en avais demeurait très confus... et je comprends au revionnage pourquoi : le film est en effet très confus et très bordélique. Evidemment, la fin comme un deus ex machina vient tout éclairer et tout expliquer mais continue de laisser totalement incrédule. Oui, on nous prend pour des jambons là-dedans... Et puis il y a Tom Croute : il faut se le taper Tommy, lui et ses gesticulations pour faire l'acteur, gueule cassée ou pas. Il a tout de même des moments presque convaincants -ou moins à la masse- quand il porte le masque. Le voilà donc qui se trompe de jambonneuse entre la blonde et la brune, qui a survécu, qui n'a pas survécu, la tronche droite ou la tronche de travers... On l'imaginerait mieux dans le rôle de l'éléphant ("je ne suis pas un animal !!") qu'a nous jouer ainsi les états d'âmes superficiels d'un fils à papa millionnaire sur fond de petites chansons affreuses (une espèce de pop commerciale niaise et très con). Et puis le film est extrêmement lent et ne se réveille qu'à la fin... Bien sûr, on pense à Ubik de Philip K. **** et on relirait bien le livre encore une fois : ça nous changerait très agréablement de ce ciel vanille aussi indigeste qu'un pudding périmé.