Rating: 
Summary: hated it
Review: This film is apparently not lacking reviews. Here's my $0.02: I don't only go to the movies for action or drama; I find many artsy movies to be entertaining and enjoyable. But with any 'art', appreciation is entirely subjective. To me, this was a painting you'd find in a modern art museum. The one that looked like a monkey splattered the canvas with paint. Beautiful? Maybe to some. Call me the kid that says the emperor's naked, but this film failed to touch me on any level. I could write paragraphs like most of the other reviewers, but there's really no need. I do not recommend this movie not because it's art that I don't appreciate, but because in my opinion I don't believe that it's art at all. Obviously, though, there are others who disagree.
Rating: 
Summary: a neat 30 minute short film
Review: ...in the middle of hours of tedium.I enjoy all sorts of movies. Cyrano de Bergerac (Ferrer version), Remains of the Day and Howard's End remain some of my favourite movies of all time. But this movie made me want to sleep -- not simply from boredom, but because my mind wanted to retreat from having the experience of sitting through this...the forced dialogue, the extremely unusual lack of chemistry between husband and wife actors (and the awkwardness from them and several of the other actors for whom I normally have an appreciation)...and I'm even a Kubrick fan. There's a sequence in the middle - the mansion scene - which is lovely to behold. Those who have seen the movie will know what I'm describing. Those who haven't, if your tastes are similar to mine, I'd advise skipping to this scene and forgetting the rest. It's like a very tasty icing layer in the middle of a very dry cake.
Rating:
Summary: The Sterility Of The Mind's Limitations
Review: Years had elapsed between one of his films and the next, yet to all,even his detractors, a new Stanley Kubrick picture was always anevent. Perhaps the most intriguing of directors, his films were so fewand far between because Kubrick, unlike every living filmmaker, had toinvent a new language with which to tell his bold, perplexing andalways rewarding stories. Few people agree on the merits of hisfilms. Yet, as I dislike some of his work, I can understand people's appreciation of it. What a shame it is then to see Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Abloodless, joyless and yes, shallow whimper of an exit. The reviewsfor the film have a morbid fascination all their own, theysystematically and often passionately analyse and search for meaningfor what is essentially eye candy. These reviews say more about thereviewers then they do about the film. Kubrick's weighty name hasprompted film lovers to offer explanations, excuses and delusionsabout the undoubtedly profound journey of one Dr. Bill Hartford (TomCruise), who after hearing his wife's all to brief confession tofantasising about another man, goes on an all night odyssey to regainhis sexual prowess. The meaning of life must be in there somewhere. Onthe face of it, a film that inspires this much reflection, even if itis for the wrong reason, can only be a good thing. Then again, applythat level of sincere analysis to a soft-core cable show, and theresults will perhaps yield greater insight. But Eyes Wide Shut istoo lifeless to be compared to soft-core, although the dialogue isoften reminiscent of those embarrassing late night excuses for ashag. Dr. Bill's bizarre habit of repeating the last sentence saidto him in almost all his conversations aside (my guess is that thecharacter is supposed to be a little dim or perhaps untainted by thepolitics of life), the character is about as human as you can get in aKubrick film, which puts him a few notches below Hal from 2001. It istempting to blame the stars, who often resort to furiously rubbingtheir temples to suggest inner-conflict, but that would be unfair. Inthe brief documentary that follows the film, Kidman says that Kubricklet the actors try as many things as they liked before both, theactors and Kubrick jointly, decided which take to print. Try as theymight, with this strangulate script and this fatal precision, theresimply is nothing there. Eyes Wide Shut is not without merit. Thefilm's washed out colours, the elegant tracking shots, the patientmise-en-scene, the incendiary and brilliant use of music promise greatmystery, a foreboding malice. An absorbing prevarication that flirtswith the border that seperates dreams and nightmares, but is undone,at a snail's pace with a plot that can only be calledpreposterous. The disappointment is not unlike that of RidleyScott's The Duellists, a striking film whose aesthetic richnesssimilarly proved to be a glossy ribbon around nothing. In a film aslacking as this one obviously is, the presence of good scenes likeKidman's confession and the grandiose orgy sequence (censored inthe US version) are a juxtaposition to its shortcomings. A good storytouts and justifies the style in which it is told, a bad one hidesbehind it. Kubrick, once the inventor of filmic language has regressedinto the age old story of insecurity of two married hollowmasses. Consequently, Eyes Wide Shut is a dramatic, artistic andemotional dead zone.
Rating: 
Summary: Stanley's Kubrick the sicko?
Review: When Stanley Kubrick left us last with his final masterpiece,Eyes Wide Shut, people expecting a (dirty movie) were dissapointed when they were faced with a gem of a film studying the relationship between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's characters and Tom Cruise's struggle to stay faithful while facing many temptations, almost like Homer's The Odyssey. If you're a fan of Kubrick or are willing to use your brain while watching a film this is definately a film i would reccomend. The transer is top notch and it includes some interesting interviews.
Rating:
Summary: Opens your eyes!
Review: Eyes Wide Shut relates a story about a marriage and comments on the institution of marriage itself as currently simplistic, offering no more than a formulaic scenario of child, home, and sexy parents who have been brainwashed by messages that told them the marriage mill of convention was where they would experinece something akin to fulfillment. The film shows how this surface- world of marriage comforts, is a devolving experience, more like the very end of experience as both Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise wrestle with other urges, propositions, sexual temptaions that lead nowhere, expunging their identities almost, effacing them as they keep referring to the flesh as a solid referent point. It is as if marriage itself and the culture that upholds it were hopelessly deep only at the very surface, so that the last line of the film is what the whole thing is about, the "f" word,with the child present,while shopping for Christmas gifts etc...it's all a vulgarism, a cheap charade, and these two cannot escape..it's Plato's cave with these two and everybody else lurking forever in the shadows of ignorance and a kind of tragic trust. Truth? at the bottom of a bottomless well.This has so many stirring images, and the mise en scene is spectacularly done as always by the great Kubrick. He is cinema/. I do, however, recommend the European version uncensored, with all the sex in tact, plus lines in tact..why is the USA censoring this film? This country still cannot melt that Puritanical ice. Also, be sure you have the right DVD if you go European! See this film..forget all other negative reviews and think for a while. This is not entertainment and thank God for that.
Rating:
Summary: The Critics, Always a Frightened Lot, Were Afraid to Praise
Review: It was inevitable, perhaps, that Stanley Kubrick's final movie would receive mixed reviews. Critics are always frightened of being found out, of being discovered to have no real talent or discrimination. There was a great deal of hype because of the mystery surrounding the film's production, the years it took to make, and Kubrick's death. Naturally, critics were afraid to praise a film that received so much media attention; it would be like admitting they were philistines. Especially since Tom Cruise played the lead. Now, Tom Cruise isn't a great actor, but he's a good one. He does the job he's paid to do. A director such as Kubrick, though, can make a good actor appear great. This is the illsion of film, and of art generally, a trompe l'oeil that is pulled off in "Eyes Wide Shut," one of Kubrick's finest films. Cruise stars as a successful physician with a beautiful family who seemingly has everyything a man could want. The film is about our dreamlife, however, so undoubtedly he wants more. One of his wealthy clients, played quite well by director Sidney Pollack, invites him to a luxurious soiree in his palacial home. The event is so magnificent it's hard to treat as realistic, and we shouldn't try to. Kubrick is exploring, in this film, everything that is hidden, everything which lies covert, within the human psyche. The protagonist's dreams of wealth and influence are symbolized by his wealthy client, and his sexual fantasies are manifest in the byzantine orgy which he later attends. His wife's infidelity is both desire and fear, something which arouses him in the most peculiar manner. This theme of indecent desire is also played out in the grieving widow who makes a pass at him while her husband's lifeless body sits a few feet away. As for fear, he is accosted by a group of young louts on the street and called a fag (an archetypal male fear if ever there was one), he discovers that a prostitute with whom he nearly slep has Aids, he is offered the services of a young girl by her own father, he encounters drug addiction and murder. He explores an underworld of fear, desire and ambiguity, both internally and externally. Like the implausible geography of Kafka's "Trial," the protagoniost wends his way through a New York of improbable nightmares. Nothing is clear, but rather everything is obique and shadowy. Kubrick has done a tremendous job of offering us the unconscious in all of its grandeur, dark and light, without being heavy-handed, pretentious or just plain silly. The novella upon which the film was based featured a psychologist; changing this profession to physician was a savvy revision, for we cannot simply say, "Oh, he's a shrink; he's exploring the unconscious." Still, a physician works well, figuratively, for his job is to see, understand and manipulate what lies beneath the surface of our bodies. The photography in the film is brilliant and subtle. Without announcing itself too loudly, the film quality looks "real" in the way that vacuous and spectacular movies like "Armageddon" never do. At the same time, the cinematagrapher does not rub our noses in the ultravivid reality of sketchy handheld cameras or faux-home-movie photography ala "Pi" or "Gummo." Instead, the effect is more nuanced and refined, like looking out a window onto the city street--without the movie frame. Kurosawa's "Hi and Low" has this same visual dynamic. As a result, we can suspend our disbelief more easily and allow ourselves to be lost in the "skillful lie," as Plato would have it, of film poetry. The mise en scene is brilliant as well. Every interior is carefully constructed to parallel the film's primary theme, the dark interior geaography of the human mind. Kubrick does with visual images what Conrad did with words in "Heart of Darkness." As the main character drives deeper into the unconscious, becomes simultaneously more liberated and frightened, the setting reflects as much. I'll leave the specific exegesis to the viewer, but pay close attention to the prostitute's squalid hovel, the protagonist's tony apartment, the wealthy client's mansion, the intimate nightclub, and even the streets of New York--which are an interior set in their own right. In the future, we will come to recognize "Eyes Wide Shut" as one of the finest films of the decade, once the critics have died and their pens have been forgotten.
Rating:
Summary: Order the DVD from Europe/ get Zone 2 player
Review: This version was corrupted in Zone 1 by US Censors actaing against the vision of the Director. Unfortunately, having died he wasn't around to rectify the problem in a "Director's Cut". The closest to that would be a European version that is uncut -- unfortunately even the European version isn't full screen. Note that you must have a modern, zone-selectable DVD player to play alternately Zone'd movies. Make sure the zone is manually "lockable" as some movies won't play in multi-auto-zone players. Don't be held hostage by the US censors in the "land of the free". -l
Rating: 
Summary: Terrific
Review: Kubrick's final film is a lasting work of art, funneling touches of Bunuel surrealism through the authoritative tracking shots of the late director. Kubrick seems to be making an homage to himself, with the deliberateness of "Barry Lyndon" and the austerity of "The Shining." In all, a fitting triumph for Kubrick, on par with the late works of Welles, Kurosawa, or Bergman. When he died, America lost its greatest film director at the moment, a man who took the medium up to his level, creating one icy and cryptic masterpiece after another. Other than Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen, no other American comes close.
Rating:
Summary: KUBRICK PAINTS TRUST, JEALOUSY, PERCEPTION: SEX IS CANVAS
Review: Rivaling Ingemar Bergman, Luis Bunuel and Frederico Fellini, Stanley Kurbick challenges us to examine trust, jeolousy and perceptions of reality. Meanwhile, he holds our voyeuristic attention with provocatively nude women's bodies, sensual settings and sexual encounters with real and imagined partners throughout the film. Few things are as they seem in EYES WIDE SHUT, and soon the viewer dares not take anything for granted. Tom Cruise and his real life wife Nicole Kidman portray the upwardly socio-economically mobile carriage-trade medical doctor, Bill Harford and his sexually energized wife Alice. An initially playful bedroom scene descends into self and mutual criticism in which issues of sexual fantasies emerge: Alice admits that she almost cheated on Bill. She reveals to him her sexual fantasy that lingers in her mind years after it first occurred. A stunned Bill becomes obsessed with Alice's fantasy, and it propels him into a series of real and imagined adventures beginning with a street prostitute and progressing through an exclusive, secret and ceremonial sexual orgy of the rich and powerful. All of these forces are depicted for us by Kubrick through the most incredibly staged and photographed scenes, focused on challenging the stability of Bill and Alice's mutual love, trust and relationship; and, indeed, their grasp on reality. This is very a long film yet it is so absorbing that the viewer does not notice the time go by. It takes some immersion and letting go to become involved in EYES WIDE SHUT. But Cruise and Kidman, supported by excellent acting make it happen. Bill's high class friend Victor Ziegler (played by Sydney Pollack), long ago pianist friend Nick Nightingale (played by Todd Field), and intriguing portrayal of Milich (by Rade Sherbedgia) an East European who rents Bill a costume for attending a super secret and forbidden sex ritual make it all come together. Today's controversial film is tomorrow's classic. Viewing EYES WIDE SHUT is a cinematographic feast for devotees of Stanley Kubrick's art.
Rating:
Summary: "B" For Effort
Review: I think this is a film I ended up wanting to like even though it veered off course several times and made me wonder whether the director knew where he was going. What made me hang in there were the performances of Kidman and Cruise (though I thought there wasn't enough of Kidman!). Both exude a very strong screen presence and have plenty of chemistry together (surpise! surprise!). It's one of those films I would sit and watch again to try to understand it better and to figure out exactly what Kubrick ultimately was hoping the viewer would come away with -- and why he had such a hard time conveying his message.
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