Open Your Eyes

Rating:
Summary: "Abre Los Ojos"...Makes "Vanilla Sky" look very bland...
Review: I saw "Abre Los Ojos" quite a while before I saw "Vanilla Sky," and to me it is far superior. Cameron Crowe's version of this dark and twisted dreamscape is so prettied up and sanitized that much of the impact of the story is lost--as is the case with many Americanized versions of foreign-language films. Eduardo Noriega is amazing (and beautiful)in "Abre Los Ojos," giving the character of Cesar a sense of darkness as well as vulnerability, not to mention the egocentricity of a spoiled child that is expected in the character--Tom Cruise, on the other hand, just seems like a movie star throughout his entire performance in "Vanilla Sky." Penelope Cruz's performance in this original version is much more believable...ironic, considering she and Cruise became a couple. The chemistry between Cruz and Noriega is much more palpable. The Madrid scenery is amazing, and there is a dreamlike quality to the film that comes from excellent cinematography and just plain good film-making...not Hollywood "magic". The characters are believable, and the ending is not as "sugar coated," so that it has an even bigger impact on the audience. Skip the Vanilla...and open your eyes.

Rating:
Summary: Penelope is the bomb
Review: Hello everyone, i bought this Dvd because it had penelope in it and because it was done in spanish. I love watching spanish movies, i highly recommend this Dvd because its the original, as most of you have probably seen vanilla sky, this is way better.

Rating:
Summary: Much Darker Than "Vanilla Sky"
Review: "Vanilla Sky" is a literally scene-by-scene remake of "Open Your Eyes" (the American film even uses much of the dialogue) but their tones are very different. The cheerful Cameron Crowe made a big budget Hollywood movie about success and winning. The Spanish film is worthy of Goya, a dark fable about spiritual derangement and deformity. After his disfigurement, the lead actor looks like a Hammer-film Frankenstein, very mangled indeed (in contrast to Cruise's milder injuries.) He commits acts of violence on screen that Cruise doesn't, probably because Big Stars don't want to scare their fans. Basically the main character here is a shallow fool, although one that you empathize with and root for his redemption. Penelope Cruz plays the same character as in the remake, but here she seems much more natural and less forced in her adorableness. The style of "Open Your Eyes" is cooler and more in control than Crowe's pychedelic version. Here, everything is slightly off-kilter in a very unnerving way. You have to watch it a second time to get all the clues about how the "reality" goes off the rails. This is really a film noir; a movie about a man who is responsible for creating his own hell. And without giving too much away, the ending is more ambiguous and potentially tragic than the American version. If you want to see a genuinely scary film that has not been sugarcoated, check out the original. "Abre los ojos!"

Rating:
Summary: Vanilla what? Abre Los Ojos!
Review: So much attention and critical acclaim has gone to Vanilla Sky that the movie that originally inspired that movie, Abre Los Ojos, has gone by unnoticed, which is a crying shame, because Alejandro Amenabar's 1998 movie far oustrips the American remake, a common pattern seen throughout movie history.

In a flashback, we see Cesar (Eduardo Noriega), a rich, arrogant, womanizing, and sinfully good-looking playboy who's reputation for being a stud extends to his not wanting to sleep with the same woman twice. He's about to turn twenty-five, he has a best friend, Pelayo (Fele Martinez), who's average looking, but wishes Cesar would get married to give him a chance at the field, and he meets Sofia (Penelope Cruz), who looks to be Pelayo's dream girl, but Cesar sets his sights on her.

Cut to the present. We see is a masked man crouched down on the floor of a tiny room, talking to a psychiatrist. We learn two things: one, the masked man is accused of a murder he committed two months ago. Two, that man is Cesar! Whoa, what happened here?

Well, basically this. Cesar's life takes a tragic turn when Nuria, an ex-girlfriend he has treated callously, gives him a lift and after asking him if he believes in God, drives her car of the road, slamming into a wall. She is killed, but Cesar survives, his good features deformed so that he's the "Phantom of the Opera."

His life starts to turn around when the doctors who previously told him that his case was hopeless offer a miracle cure with new equipment. His face is restored, he gets back Sofia, and that's when he's plunged into a real nightmare.

The movie's resolution is one of those that will leave the first-time viewer who hasn't seen Vanilla Sky reeling with amazement. Things start to turn bizarre in the latter third of the movie and builds the tension notch by notch in the film's final half hour.

All the leads do well, but Chete Lara deserves extra kudos as the psychiatrist Antonio who genuinely cares and tries to help Cesar despite the latter's difficult behavior.

"Abre Los Ojos" demonstrates once more how the foreign original far outstrips the Hollywood remake. Noriega's face is more hideous than Tom Cruise's in Vanilla Sky and painful to look at, and Penelope Cruz is far prettier here--she looks mousey-blah in the remake. And the resolution is not fully spooned out for the sake of the lay viewer as it was in Vanilla Sky. Here, enough pieces are provided so the viewer can put the rest together by him/herself. So for those of you who think Vanilla Sky is way better, abre los ojos!

Rating:
Summary: Extremely clever and disturbing movie
Review: Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) follows the story of César a womanizng playboy who's life is changed forever when he is disfigured in a car crash. In jail for murdering his grilfriend César tries reconstruct what happened. The viewer never really knows what is real and imagined, what is fact and what is a reconstruction. The confusion is understandable as the movie ends, with the conclusion perhaps asking more questions than it answers. You might not like the ending at all, but it is certainly very original. (This movie is in European Spanish)

Rating:
Summary: Way better than Vanilla Sky
Review: Penelope Cruz shows why she was exported to the US in an amazing performance, which is quite different from her portrayal in Vanilla Sky. Though Crowe did write in some touching lines and hilarious one liners, the plot was spoiled and thickened to a beyond point of confusion in the English remake and the clean, sharp and edgy original in Spanish makes for deeper, more interesting characters...Noreiga makes Tom Cruise look foolish, and though Cameron Diaz was a terrifically frightening stalker and Jason Lee was a clever, and quirky best friend...who do you think they learned their roles from? The Spanish actors are superb and a little reading for anyone who doesn't speak Spanish won't hurt for a wonderful film. If you are a fan of the director but don't want to read any subtitles, check out "The Others" with Nicole Kidman.

Rating:
Summary: life is but a dream
Review: impressed with the way this film works, it starts well with the first dream sequence, and then falls back into what seems to be a fairly standard style spanish movie, but this just sets up the characters and story, for the mad events to follow.
a real pleasant suprise, havent seen the tom cruise remake, and as ususal am in no hurry to, as scene by scene remakes go ill take nikita over assisn anyday, so id imagine the analogy is similiar.
This film is remniscint of fight club and total recall in the style of what is real what isnt, which really works here. the last scene is excellent.
the cast is great even penelope cruz is believable.
highly recomended.

Rating:
Summary: a bit maddening
Review: This film, the original version of Tom Cruise's Vanilla Sky, is a stylish, ambitious thriller that may not quite achieve the profundity it's aiming for but nonetheless plays fascinating tricks with reality and imagination, dreams and waking, and the degree to which we can trust what we perceive, even about ourselves. Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is a handsome but dissipated rich boy, notorious for never spending two nights with the same woman. But on the evening of a party in his apartment he discovers that his latest conquest, Nuria, has no intention of being discarded like all the rest.

That night he falls in love, or in lust at any rate, with his best friend's date, Sofia (Penélope Cruz) and when the friend gets drunk, Cesar takes Sofia home and spends the night, though just talking. Next morning, as he's leaving, he finds Nuria waiting for him and is taunted into accepting a ride home. On the way she swerves off the road, a murder/suicide attempt that kills her and leaves Cesar horribly disfigured. Much of the remainder of the story is told in flashbacks, with Cesar in the psychiatric ward of a prison--wearing a mask that looks somewhat like his original face, but inhuman and immobile--trying to piece together what has happened since, including the events that have ended with him being held for the murder of Sofia, with whom he eventually became lovers, though obviously ill-fated.

As Cesar and an immensely patient psychiatrist delve back into the past, various elements like cryogenics, reconstructive surgery, a charismatic TV personality, the mysterious reappearance of Nuria, and a possible scheme by a group of investors with whom Cesar shares business interests all enter into the tangled plot. Some of this is confusing and the behavior of several characters, especially Sofia, is unbelievable as its happening, but by the end these inconsistencies have been cleared up, if not the entirety of the plot, which is left fairly open-ended.

Though the tale is quite convoluted it's never needlessly so. The whole is done with great vigor and a sure-handedness that carries the film through its most dubious moments. The only real problem is structural : Cesar is such a flaming ... that the viewer quite enjoys seeing him get his comeuppance, rather than feeling much empathy. This makes for a somewhat sadistic, but still enjoyable, experience as he's taught some brutal lessons about the limits of wealth and physical beauty. One might prefer an ending that made a more definitive statement about what's come before, but the intentional ambiguity allows for personal conjecture. That may be a bit maddening but its not necessarily a bad thing.

GRADE : B+

Rating:
Summary: Eduardo Noriega es mi sueno
Review: Eduardo Noriega stars in the role that would later be played by Tom Cruz in the Hollywood remake, Vanilla Sky.

I'm not a Tom Cruz fan and did not see Van Sky. let's just leave it at that. But Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos en Espana) had me fairly involved as I followed the events of the character played by Noriega (who is, by the way, absolutely beautiful) He plays a much less sympathetic character than the one in "Plata Quemada" (Burnt Money). (even though he was a murdering bank robber in Burnt money)
In this film he is a rich spoiled brat who owes allegiance to no one. (actually reminds me of my most recent ex-boyfriend in Spain) He meets his come uppance and is being interviewed in jail trying to figure out what happened.

The ending was a bit lacking in my opinion after the elaborate buildup of the whole movie. But I still liked it enough to see it repeatedly. It's a good film (esp if you like Noriega or Penelope Cruz) But not a great film like Burnt Money

My recommendation is to get this movie if you like films with a psychological twist.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I normally prefer the European originals to their dumbed-down Hollywood remakes, but I think many viewers coming to this film via Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" will be disappointed. So faithful was Crowe's adaptation that, when watching this one, it's hard not to notice the things he changed and to come away with the feeling that they were changed for the better. The dialogue and scene structures are much looser here, and the backstory isn't as well developed. And in terms of performances and production values, "Vanilla Sky" leaves "Open Your Eyes" for dead. Full credit to Alejandro Amenábar for the originality of his story and his vision, but hats off to Crowe for taking it to the next level. I'm stunned.