Rating: 
Summary: Tom Cruise is overrated
Review: This movie is one of the worst I've ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: Vu Ja (should have seen it coming)
Review: Not much to say about this film other than it could have been a couple of hours shorter, and I should have seen it coming (the ending)....Definately a style over substance film!
Rating: 
Summary: Transcends the original
Review: Here in Vanilla Sky, a thoughtful reprise of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes (1997), directed by Alejandro Amenabar, we have Tom Cruise, American heart throb and box office buffo paired with his current true love, the amazingly beautiful and very talented Penelope Cruz. Guess what happens. The public doesn't like him. Even though this is a more finely structured and comprehensible film than Open Your Eyes (we'll get to that in moment), Tom Cruise is NOT sympathetic, or at least it takes us until near the end of the film to feel any sympathy for him, and then perhaps what we feel most sympathetic for is the mask that is Tom Cruise in most of the later reels. I think the problem is that Cruise is miscast. Unlike Eduardo Noriega, who played the same part in the film directed by Alejandro Amenabar, Cruise is too cute and too privileged to elicit our sympathy. We almost feel his character has it coming. After all, he willingly got into the car with his "stalker" (Cameron Diaz) presumably to have a little sexual fun. And this just after spending a Platonic night with Sofia (Penelope Cruz), whom he is now supposed to be in love with. Furthermore--and this may be just a minor point, but a telling one--Cruise's disfigurement was not as gross as was Noriega's. One gets the sense that perhaps Cruise insisted on it being that way. From another angle, one might ask, is this deja vu all over again? Recall that Cruise was married to Nichole Kidman when he played opposite her in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Guess what happened. The public didn't like it. Aside from the fact that they didn't understand it, what they didn't like was Tom Cruise. He was NOT sympathetic. One could not identify with his cruising various kinky sexual opportunities as a privileged married doctor. Having said all that, I still think that this film, directed by the very talented Cameron Crowe, who wrote Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and wrote and directed Almost Famous (2000), is the better film. Why? Mainly because Crowe demonstrates a better understanding of the underlining theme of the film than did Amenabar. (Of course he had the benefit of Amenabar's film to improve upon.) What I am getting at is the precarious nature of our brain's experience of reality. On one level, I think that is what the film is really all about. (On another level of course there is a love triangle.) Throw the cryonics mumble jumble out the window and consider that we might, as some people believe, become software. As partial products of our own culture we will (at least in the beginning) experience glitches that will destroy our dreams, just as David Aames's guilty conscience destroyed his lucid dream and made him see a projection of his fear and his guilt instead of seeing his beloved Sofia. If we do become software, there will be imperfect matches between our biological nature and the artificial neural nets we will fuse with. We will not be freezing ourselves in the future. Instead we will merge with our machines as we live and become part human and part artificial intelligence--something beyond human. This is the glimpse of the future that Cameron Crowe extends to us, a possibility that he saw in the Spanish language film not fully worked out by Amenabar. Despite his miscasting, I think Tom Cruise gave a spirited performance, and I think only his celebrity and the compromised personality of the character he plays kept some movie goers from fully appreciating his work. Penelope Cruz is more playful here than she was in Open Your Eyes and her role here is somewhat larger. Crowe makes sure she has ample time in front of the camera to mesmerize us, and she does. At some point I realized that she reminded me a little of Audrey Hepburn. Perhaps she has been watching some of Miss Hepburn's films. (I would bet on it.) Regardless, she, whom I first saw in Belle Epoque (1992) when she was eighteen, is utterly bewitching. Also giving an excellent performance is Cameron Diaz as the fatally scorned other woman. She brings a sexy, haunting quality to the part that works well with Cruise's software "experiences." She is not quite as convincing a stalker as was Najwa Nimri in the original, however, and this may be another reason that this film only gets 7.0 out of 10 stars from the voters at IMDb while Open Your Eyes gets 7.8. Usually I prefer the original to the remake, the European film to the Hollywood production, but in this case I think it is Vanilla Sky that will be remembered. At any rate, look past Tom Cruise's celebrity and see this for Cameron Crowe whose vision of a virtually real future is intriguing and reveals that he did his homework.
Rating:
Summary: ?
Review: it's been a while since i've seen this movie.
if i recall i came away from the story plot thinking that it showed how when we try and 'hold' onto others or our 'beauty" or our sexuality or our 'work-as-self' as the -1- defining item of our personality that well, we have some problems greet us or sometimes we become the problem for others... i'm not 'religious"...this is IT..no practice round. [IMO]
and i like the song by joan osborne
Rating:
Summary: Big budget -- big disappointment
Review: The previews were much better than the film. It gave the illusion of a mystery-thriller. This is by far the worst use of talent, money and direction. This movie ambled along & ended up no where. I agree with a previous reviewer in that Penelope Cruz is not good at all in this film. Her dialog is completely reactionary and her character doesn't have one original thought. She just looks good and is there for the men in the film to drool over. This has made my list of worst films ever. I give it one star only because is was filmed well and the soundtrack was interesting. I am only glad I saw it on cable and didn't pay for it in the theater. At least I was able to do my nails during the film, so not all was lost.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but not as fulfilling as it would like to be
Review: After the unprecedented success of Almost Famous, director Cameron Crowe assembled a formidable cast. Jerry Maguire (another Crowe movie) star Tom Cruise returned, as did Almost Famous star Billy Crudup, completing a line-up that consists of Penelope Cruz (who starred in the original Abras Los Ojos), Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell and even small turns by Tilda Swinton and Alicia Witt. The story revolves around hot-shot billionaire David's (Cruise) romantic encounter with Sofia (Cruz), a person who he thinks he may have found true love with. That is until his jealous sort-of-girlfriend Julie (Diaz) drives them both off a brdige, killing herself and disfiguring him horribly. Or did she? Flashing back and forwards between the present, with David trying to build his life up again with Sofia, to a present where David sits in prison with a latex mask over his face, accused of murder and talking to psychologist Kurt Russell, Vanilla Sky constantly confuses you as to what is going on. The cast is close to perfect, with the famed romance between Cruise and Cruz being particularly evident, something that clearly works to Crowe's advantage. Cruise is clearly comfortable working with Crowe again and resultantly puts in one his best performances to date (but still not beating his turns in Born On The Fourth Of July and Magnolia). However, whilst many have praised him for trying a brave role in that his good looks are marred by facial disfigurement are a little off the mark; it's not really that bad and he's not disfigured for a great deal of the movie. Cruz has a willowy elegance to her that lends itself perfectly to the role and Diaz as always is a pure delight whenever she's on screen. Russell and Crudup for the most part have thankless roles but do the best they can with them, rounding up a list of impressive performances. However, Crowe's film is decidedly over-ambitious and cannot satisfy on a number of levels. Whilst it's true that the ending will make you see everything in a new perspective, this doesn't mean that you'll have had any more fun watching an ultimately cloying first date between the leads and a lot of flashy effects with David constantly waking from dreams, being told to open his eyes and being asked if he can tell the difference between dreams and reality. If it wasn't for the fact that Crowe clearly thinks himself very clever for doing this and signposts a twist ending right from the very beginning maybe Vanilla Sky would be more entertaining at a basic level and also on a psychological level. As it stands though this is a movie with a good resolution and great performances. Still, to say that a film's only flaw is the fact that it's got too many ambitions has got to be something to be applauded. Not long ago a movie like Vanilla Sky wouldn't have been made with an all-star cast and the movie's marketting did it no favours by not delivering exactly the romance with a twist story that Cruise fans might have been expecting. As it stands this is an intriguing piece of moviemaking that doesn't quite pull it off, but at least it shows a step forward in Hollywood if they're prepared to make adult movies such as this, along with recent pictures such as Insomnia, Lantana and The Others. Given this, maybe Vanilla Sky shouldn't be condemned completely.
Rating:
Summary: Not exactly a revolution of the mind
Review: People who have seen this movie before Abre Los Ojos, the Alejandro Amenabar film on which this is based, well, let me say this. When a remake tries to mirror the original in certain scenes to the point of paraphrasing the dialogue, it can't be that good. Surely some innovation is required to lift it above the original, yes? Basically, David Aames (Tom Cruise) is a spoiled millionaire whose parents left him in control of three magazines in a worldwide publishing house. He has 51% control, but seven other shareholders, derogatorily known as the Seven Dwarfs, have the other 49% and have nothing but contempt for this breezy, smug, playboy. At his 33rd birthday party, he's introduced to his best friend Brian's new girl Sofia, and falls for her. Feeling that he has been "snowboarding through life with no focus," Sofia tells him that "every passing moment is another chance to turn it around." However, before he can make good on that chance, he gets in a car accident that damages his face. His good looks gone, and his life goes downhill as a result. All the time, he's telling this to a psychologist while in prison for murder, a murder he insists he didn't commit. David thinks the Seven Dwarfs have set him up in order to wrest control of the publishing house. His face is repaired eventually, but things take a turn for the weird. Cruise plays himself as usual, arrogant, smug, cocky, with a smile that makes me side with the Seven Dwarfs. He acts nonchalantly in a scene where he and Brian are nearly killed in a car accident, laughing with Brian when the latter says "Your whole life flashed before my eyes--almost worth dying for." Jason Lee (Brian) comes off the best here, not bad in a drama role, but someone who in contrast to Cruise is the average guy yearning for that girl of his dreams, but can't compete. He has a good line to that effect: "you don't know the exquisite pain of the guy who goes home alone" and also his speech on love being the sour and the sweet, where the former makes one appreciate the latter. Penelope Cruz really has a thankless role here. It's bad enough that she has to reprise a role which she did three years before, but she isn't as good-looking as she was in the original. Cameron Diaz has a smile that lights up her whole face, and plays Julianna, a girl David treats callously, as someone who shows some deep feelings through her shallowness. She even tells David in the car, "when you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not." And Kurt Russell as the psychologist is clearly modelled after his Spanish counterpart Cheta Lara, down to glasses and beard. Maybe the cinematography of Monet's vanilla sky realized, plus Nancy Wilson's melancholy theme "Elevator Beat" made it worth watching, but other than that... All in all, way inferior to the Spanish original, which I hope those of you who haven't seen this watch first instead. Then watch this and draw your own conclusions.
Rating:
Summary: Involuntary humor at best
Review: Involuntary humor at best: poor dialogues, really bad acting (what to expect with Tom and Penelope?), when the movie finally makes its final twist, you wish it had ended some 30 minutes earlier.
Rating:
Summary: What is happiness to you???
Review: Vanilla Sky is a brilliant movie about a privalged playboy's(Tom Cruise) fall from grace. His best friend Brian sums up the movie in the first half hour when he tells David (Cruise)that he must taste the sour in order to appreciate the sweet. David soon learns how very true that statement is. I found myself laughing uncomfortably at the dialogue used by Cruise's charcter after the accident. Somehow this once suave man must learn to deal with his newfound awkwardness. I also found myself sobbing at the lessons he learns from his ordeal in the end. The only problem with Vanilla Sky is it's marketing. Unsuspecting viewers need to know that this is not your run of the mill thriller. The viewer will have to sort dreams from reality. The Cameron Crowe version of Open Your Eyes has much more dialogue and fluff than does it's predecesser. Crowe tries to explain what Amenábar only implies. Jason Lee and Cameron Diaz add life to the wooden counterparts of the Spanish version.
Rating:
Summary: The Sweet Isn't as Sweet Without The Sour
Review: Vanilla Sky, has to be the best film I have ever seen in my entire life. It's about real life, how people use each other. I have met many people who disagree with me on liking or disliking the movie but the only way someone could dislike this movie is honestly they didn't get it. This movie made me realize a lot more about myself, dumb as it sounds, It's a great movie. VIEWERS BEWARE: MUST HAVE A BRAIN TO WATCH AND COMPREHEND.
IF YOU LACK LOGIC PLEASE STEER CLEAR OF THIS MOVIE.
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