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Vanilla Sky Customer Reviews (82 - 84 of 96 Reviews)

Be Careful not to endanger your future with vain eternity
There is no present when we manipulate the future. The film tries to show us that surviving after death at very low temperatures is extremely dangerous, not for our survival per se but because these business people who are going to propose us with such an adventure will have to occupy our sleep with dreams and these dreams may turn into nightmares, and like all dreams, these nightmares will go on feeding themselves on the psyche of the sleepers. Then coming back to life after a long period of hibernation is going to be slightly difficult because such dreams or nightmares will have erased any clear limit between reality and imagination, and what's more we will come back to quite a different world. Waking up or passing away will be a choice to be made while we are still asleep, hence within our dreams or nightmares. But if these dreams have turned sour how can we desire to go on with them, since we are going to be killed in a way or another in these nightmares, and we want to live, or how can we desire to get out of it since we don't even know it is nothing but a nightmare, hence a dream, not reality ? In other words this film seems to imply that we must not play with the present because we are thus manipulating our survival in a future that we definitely ignore now. This film tries to tell us that we have to assume the present and build whatever future can come out of it with the means we have at our disposal, particularly our psychological means to cope with the present that can be a real unescapable nightmare in a way. The end is of course quite unidentifiable : are we in the future or are we in the present ? Is the character going to wake up in an unknown future or is he going to wake up in the present ? Is he going to come out of a real nightmare in the present, or out of an artificial dream turned sour in the future ? Each one of us will have to decide.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Vanilla Sky - *** Stars
Give this much to Tom Cruise and writer-director Cameron Crowe: They know better than to try to fix what isn't broken. Their remake of Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar's nightmare fantasy "Open Your Eyes (Abre los ojos)" is every bit as strange and creepily effective as the original--largely because, apart from some sparkling new dialogue from ace character writer Crowe ("Almost Famous," "Jerry Maguire"), it's essentially the same film.

Confidently giving what often seems to be a mirror image of Eduardo Noriega's performance in Amenábar's 1997 version, Cruise plays a publishing magnate's wealthy heir--a spoiled playboy type whose most pressing problem is how to blow off one gorgeous lover (Cameron Diaz) so that he might more conveniently pursue another (Penélope Cruz, repeating her memorable work from the Spanish version). But no sooner has this world been established than cracks begin to form in it, spinning the plot into far different genre territory. A series of intercut scenes show Cruise's character wearing a mask--apparently to cover horribly disfiguring scars on his face--as a psychologist (Kurt Russell) interviews him in prison. How these two realities intersect in the film's increasingly fragmented dreamscape is the mystery that drives the rest of the twist-filled story.

Collaborating for the first time since their 1996 hit "Jerry Maguire," Crowe and producer-star Cruise have come up with what feels more like an English-language dub of "Open Your Eyes" than the kind of cross-cultural reimagining such remakes usually represent. Retaining the original film's structure almost beat for beat while mimicking Amenábar's visual style, sometimes right down to specific shots, Crowe devotes his energies to fine-tuning the complex web of relationships connecting the characters, reinforced by one of his trademark eclectic song-loaded soundtracks (wife Nancy Wilson of the rock group Heart contributes bits of trippy score in those few moments when Crowe isn't playing D.J.).

While the results don't improve upon the original version in any major way, the filmmakers have succeeded in accomplishing their apparent goal: splicing one of Hollywood's biggest stars into a mind-twisting tale most subtitle-phobic U.S. audiences otherwise never would have seen.

One of my top 10 favorite movies.
Before you tar and feather me, consider this movie shares that top ten with the likes of:

It's a Wonderful Life

Empire of the Sun

As Good as it Gets

I'm not a moron. I have taste (eheh, or so I think...). Look, for those that disagree, I'd like to speak to you first, and concede a few things:

This movie IS confusing...Insanely confusing, and it took allot of appreciation away from my first screening. Also, it is stuffed with allot of "cinematic sweetener"; almost acts like a music video at times, unbelievably fashionable, even the dialogue pushes the limits and sometimes swims past the buoys of practical.

That said (and without giving anything away to those who haven't seen it), I think it's helpful to consider this not as a drama, but as a Science Fiction movie. It really is; but it masquerades as a drama up until the end. That can be frustrating for unprepared viewers, and lends itself to even more confusion as to what is going on.

I'm a huge believer in the technology that plays a central role in the dramatic climax. I think it will change everything. So granted, that aspect lent a particular attraction for me to the film. However, I think the lesson of the movie is important for everyone [and this is my interpretation], "you make your own life, and it's really not about the big decisions, it's about the small ones that aggregate to form your orientation; orientation that could serve as gravity for good things in your life, or bad".

Nothing new, nothing earth shattering. However, that lesson, folded into some of the best cinematography, best music, and darn good acting...

...it earned my five stars, and more than that...I truly love this film.

For those who haven't seen it, please know ahead of time that it'll be confusing...try and watch somewhere you can give it good attention (hard to do at 3 hours, but worth it; I've seen over 5 times).

Hope this was helpful.

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