Open Your Eyes

Rating:
Summary: Not to be missed !
Review: This is one of the very best movies I've ever seen and in my opinion it is without any doubt a true masterpiece ! It is a clever mixture of thriller, science-fiction and love story and it will keep you hooked until the very end. So moving and so exciting ! Just great ! You cannot make a mistake in buying that one ! I am eagerly looking forward to discovering the forthcoming new movie of the brilliant Spanish director, Alejandro Amenabar, starring Nicole Kidman.

Rating:
Summary: An new spaniard Genius
Review: Second movie from the spaniard director Alejandro Amenabar, that this time amazes us with his creativeness, by constructing a film that moves from a romantic drama to a thriller and ends in an enigmatic sci-fi story. The movie is all on the dreams --rather say nightmares-- of young wealthy and attractive man, that never knows if what he's livng is true or is just a dream. The dreams are in this case the actions of the movie, the plot constantly moves from what he is supposed to dream to what we believe is real. So in the end we never really know if what we saw really happened or was a figment of our imagination. An advice when you watch this movie, "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: Mind-boggling, worldview-altering film
Review: I'm not sure if this movie has yet achieved classic status, but it certainly should. Open Your Eyes is the smartest, most powerful, and most important film I've seen in a long, long time. I was literally speechless at the end. Speechless! That doesn't happen too often.

Essentially, the story centers around Cesar (Eduardo Noriega), an impossibly handsome moneyed bachelor who has but a few passions, and the most pronounced of those is sex. After spending time with Sofia (Penelope Cruz), his jilted girlfriend, Nuria (Najwa Nimri) drives her car off the road, killing herself and horribly mutilating Cesar's face. Soon after, reality begins to break apart, and Cesar must try to understand what led up to his being committed to an asylum, accused of a murder he doesn't remember committing. Then the fun starts. If you enjoy having the rug pulled out from under you, trying to put together the puzzle without all the pieces, then chances are you'll enjoy this little gem. However, this movie isn't about psychological tricks at all--if you check out the liner notes for the DVD, Amenabar has a sort of mini-essay where he says that the movie is about alienation, and the opening scene is an indellible image: the city of Madrid, home of 5 million people, completely empty. It always comes to mind when I'm walking down a lonely road.

So, you might be wondering, do I see this or the Tom Cruise American remake? The answer is: this one. It's not hard to see why this movie didn't fare quite so well in America--many people here have become so isolationistic and close-minded that they don't want to watch a movie with subtitles. Then again, these are the same people who complain that Hollywood doesn't make good movies anymore but don't bother to watch independent films either. Not only that, but this movie doesn't give much in the way of closure--it can be taken at face value, but too many small mysteries abound to bring about a final resolution, and many audiences here would just as soon not pay money to see a movie if they don't know what happened. I'm not a film snob, by the way--I have enjoyed a few Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in my day (he makes a better politician than actor) and I don't bore other people with harangues on the genius of Kubrick, Altman, Cassavetes, etc. The remake, though, was far more in spirit to American cinema today--all the ambiguities and mysteries that enrichened the original film were stripped out to create a film with less feeling and far more closure. I'm actually surprised that the remake got that close, considering the studios today.

Now, my soapboxing over, please enjoy the film. If you don't mind subtitles--heck, even if you don't like them but keep an open mind--you'll no doubt be enthralled, as I was.

Rating:
Summary: Luscious, disturbing, darker than the US version
Review: As a native speaker of Spanish, I thought my original preference of Abre los Ojos, or OYE, over Vanilla Sky was natural. Now, after having lived five years in the United States, I realize that, while both movies have their own special characteristics, I still prefer OYE because the main character, Cesar, is more intense and well-formed. Other acting jobs I found to be almost interchangeable, but maybe not in a bad way. Definitely see this version first, to feel the intense emotions, then VS for plot clarification, if necesary.

Rating:
Summary: A good psychological thriller
Review: The story is well constructed and well told with very fine acting. The DVD does not contain a lot of bells and whistles, but I still recommend it.

Now for the comparison between "Open Your Eyes" and "Vanilla Sky". I don't see why anyone would like OYE better than VS because up until the final chapter, they're almost exactly alike.
OYE is better in some ways and VS is better in others. The plot developments are explained slightly better in OYE than in VS, and I certainly loved the make-up job of the disfigured young man in OYE. But I prefer the animated acting in VS, and the final sequence in VS is a lot better than in OYE.

Rating:
Summary: Opened my eyes once, don't need to see the same thing.
Review: I suspect the thing about well-realised non-US movies that makes them so difficult to remake for a Hollywood audience, is that there is a particular emotive approach employed in the storytelling that is also adopted by its particular audience, that simply isn't easily tapped into by most of us who (willingly or not) are tuned into the US-centric film culture.

I haven't seen "Vanilla Sky". I don't particularly want to. It might be just as good as "Open Your Eyes", I don't know. I suspect however, that the passion that is peculiar to non-western storytelling is missing, and without that, this story would be hard to retell without being contrived.

I was entralled by "Open your eyes" and its characters, who were portrayed by actors with whom I was personally unfamiliar at the time. This helped, in that the celebrity factor was not there to distract from the narrative.

Why did "Vanilla Sky" bomb? Probably because it was a mature story aimed at the Tom Cruise fanclub. Mature, deep-thinking audiences don't want to see Tom Cruise. And Tom Cruise fans don't want to think too hard at the cinema. All points to Tom for undertaking cerebral projects, but both he and Hollywood have got a way to go before they'll be synonymous with anything other than overly expensive "cheap" cash-ins.

Rating:
Summary: why did Vanilla Sky even happen???
Review: Like most reviewers, I saw "Vanilla Sky," the American remake of this film, long before I saw "Abre Los Ojos." After finally seeing the original version, I'm left absolutely bewildered why anyone thought that it needed to be remade to begin with. This is a truly beautiful film. Wonderfully acted and written, and done with a fittingly modest budget. Granted, it's not in english, but I don't think the average viewer is as turned off by that as Hollywood seems to think. (How many copies of "Amelie" were sold in the US??? It's probably more to do with poor marketing than actual hatred of "reading" films.)

I will not get into a sprawling review of the film, as there are many reviews already posted which do so adequately enough. Just take my advice, if you found even a little in "Vanilla Sky" that you liked, and yet found it to be a deeply flawed film (as I did), give this version a try. It is a much more complete and well constructed film than "Vanilla Sky" ended up being. Far superior, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: Very good (Bien escrito y hecho)
Review: I saw _Vanilla Sky_ first, but it did not cloud my judgment on ABRE LOS OJOS. What a great film: metaphysics and psychology in a mesmerizing thriller.

I cannot recommend this strongly enough.

Vi _Vanilla Sky_ antes de ver ABRE LOS OJOS, pero eso no me confundió en cuál fue la mejor película: ABRE LOS OJOS.

Es tan buena película, mezclando la metafísica y la psicología en un film lleno de intriga.

La recomiendo mucho.

Rating:
Summary: penelope is great
Review: 'Abre Los Ojos' - or 'Open Your Eyes' - is Spanish director's Alejandro Amenábar's master work. Amenábar is famous here in the United States for his subsequent work with Nicole Kidman in 'The Others,' but he first burst into international prominence as the writer and shaper of the wildly inventive 'Ojos.'

And that caught the attention of the international film set, including director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe and Tom Cruise. They re-shaped the 1997 release of Madrid-based 'Ojos' into 2001's NYC-based 'Vanilla Sky'.

Without getting into a lengthy blow-by-blow comparison of the two releases, let's just say that anyone who sees the original after the re-make has the same comment: "I really wish I had seen the original first."

Exactly. It's the far superior film. Crowe/Cruise add nothing to it, and in fact seem to have suceeded only in totally confusing or frustrating their audience.

Although I should point out that Cameron Diaz is really brilliant in 'Sky' as the doomed femme fatale, far better than Najwa Nimri, who played the same role in 'Ojos.'