Vanilla Sky (2001)

Vanilla Sky reunites director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) with über-playboy Tom Cruise, adds another sexy Cruz (Penélope) and Cameron Diaz for good measure, and delivers a wildly entertaining, bizarre venture into erotic science fiction. Adapted near exactly from Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 romantic thriller Open Your Eyes, the film follows David Aames (Cruise) as he falls from his graceful Manhattan perch of inordinate wealth, good looks, and newfound love with Sofia (Cruz) because of severe facial disfigurement in a car accident caused by a suicidal ex-lover (Diaz). What at first promises to be a conventional allegory of redemption via true love is turned on its head as Cruise's character, reduced to wearing a latex mask and spurned by his friends, wins back his princess only after a miracle of plastic surgery restores his former beauty. A series of plot twists follows as waking life, technological advances, and nightmares flip-flop to dizzying effect and David ultimately comes face to face with his own mortality. Despite a final conceit to some vague morality, the appeal of the film is the wonderfully callous message conveyed by the rest of it (money and physical beauty equal happiness) through an unabashed vanity perfectly embodied by Cruise and Cruz. A delicious, decadent treat. --Fionn Meade Amazon.com

Descartes for the masses: a frozen dream

I suppose what I dislike about this movie is the misuse of cryonics
technology as an asleep and dreaming scheme.
To make an eternally young Tom Cruise sex film out of a
sci fi and philosophic concept seems obscene to me.
The twist of insanity at the end of a very long set of reruns...
I found it hard to watch this film which was obviously made
for big box office alone.
I didn't like is very much. August 10, 2008

Sci-Fi Twist

Whoops, I gave it away, but what the hey. Cameron Crowe's fifth film is brilliantly orchestrated. I watched this film over the course of three days. As each day ended and I was on my way home from work I replayed what I watched the previous night in my head, hyping myself up for what I was going to see that night. I simply loved every twist and turn of this film.

This film, I believe, marks a departure for Cameron Crowe's film making. You will quickly see that this film is not as focused on the MTV generation, generation X or music in general. So the story goes, he became infatuated with the whole concept of Abre Los Ojos (the original Spanish film)that he felt as though he must try it himself. Cruise is the lead and I realized it in this film that he really is an odd actor. His acting seems so very fake and over-the-top, yet at the same time, poignantly real. I do like him for this. Cruz and Diaz are wonderful. Cruz we knew she was this kind of an actor, but Diaz surprised me with a different performance than her usual.

All in all, Vanilla Sky is visually stimulating; the mannerisms of the characters in the film are so natural and pleasing to the eyes, the dreamscapes are delectable and the end is beautiful. This is a film for film buffs. May 27, 2008

Hate/Love it? I'm on the hater's boat!

All the reviewers who said that this is a movie you love or hate,and I really hated it. It was long, boring, and I just didn't connect with any of the characters. I would have turned it off long before it was over, but I was watching it with other people. The only thing remotely good is Camron Diaz, I guess I did like one character after all. Stay away unless you feel you just have to, and if you hate it, you can jump into our ship! April 14, 2008

One of my favorites

Original, fun, with a sad unconventional ending. A definite love it or hate it movie. Makes you appreciate what you have rather than taking everything for granted as David Ames does. If you "don't get it" at first, watch it again. If you watched it once and hated it...don't bother. March 17, 2008

Some of the most beautiful ideas and scenes I know of in a film

For many years this has been one of my favourite films. The very film itself is very "Faustian", in it's theoretically never ending quest for love, experience and knowledge. It also has a much darker side to it, reminding me somewhat of another absolutely wonderful dark film; "The Jacket", with a touch of "Donnie Darko". I've seen the original Spanish film "Abre los ojos" that this more or less is an exact remake of, and amusingly, it contains the same lovely Penelope Cruz in her role as Sofia Serrano. The lead character David Aames is played by Tom Cruise, not someone I particularly like neither in "real life" nor in this film, but he does a good job in this film, and that is after all what counts. His role as a lucky rich boy with no responsibility and who's "all about fun", in his own words, represents my complete opposite, that being so, he quickly finds himself forced to recognize that "there are consequences in life".

Aames falls completely in love with a girl that his lonely best friend brings to Aames' own birthday party (some friend, huh?). Jason Lee does an excellent role with his character Brian Shelby. The happiness ends suddenly though, after Aames lack of responsibility comes back around to him the morning after and he ends up emotionally and physically crippled afterwards. Cameron Diaz plays the character of the slut stalker of Aames, and no fault of Diaz, her character is completely horrible, an awful person.

Without revealing the end and the entire plot for those of you out there who strangely have not seen this marvellous film yet, I would just like to recommend this beyond words. Even though the upper layer of the film seems very "decadent" and "shallow", it really is about (in my view) the greatest thing of all, the search for knowledge and experience. Add the beautiful Penelope Cruz and a really existentialist theme throughout, which I'm sure everyone who thinks for him or herself can relate to (is the world real or merely an illusion?), and you've got yourself one of my favourite films. The end scene is simply sublime, with what probably is the best song in the world, Sigur Ros' divine "Njosnavellin".

Watch it! January 14, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...