Update 4/2/01
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Open Your Eyes. Thats the first words you hear in Vanilla Sky and in a way, you as the audience have to. The trailer for the film muttered these words too and after watching the trailer, you would be forgiven to think that it’s just a normal bittersweet love triangle type turn murder storyline. No chance! Open Your Eyes! This is a Cameron Crowe movie starring Tom Cruise and produced by Tom Cruise, so prepare yourself for a very self-indulgent movie!

Vanilla Sky is a remake of a 1997 Spanish film called ‘Abre Los Ojos’ which translates to ‘Open Your Eyes’ directed by Alejandro Amenabar who also directed the recent 'The Others' starring Nicole Kidman. Tom Cruise saw this film, liked it and thought, I buy the rights to remake this and I’ll get Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Muguire etc) onboard.

To give you too much of the plot will ruin this film, so I will only state the obvious. Tom Cruise plays David Aames, a forever smirking multi-millionaire publisher who has an on off sexual relationship with the seductive Julie Gianni (played by Cameron Diaz). Being a womanizer, David isn’t serious about his relationship with Gianni, treating her only as his 'f**k buddy' . David’s best friend is Brian Shelby (Jason Lee) and at David’s huge birthday party, Brian introduces David to his date, Sophia (Penelope Cruz). David and Sophia are intrigued with each other and, unaware of Brian's feelings, flirt continuously with each other. The party is invite only but this doesn’t stop the unstable Julie from turning up and surprising him. Obviously she’s jealous of Sophia especially when David begins to pay more attention to his new found love. David spends the night with Sophia.

After a night of talking, flirting and drawing portraits of each other, David’s decides he has found a new direction in his life and will return to work to sort things out between him and his 'seven dwarfs' board whom he shares 49% of his publishing empire with. David walks out of Sophia's door and straight into Julie Gianni who has been following him. They have a little talk and Julie persuades the womanizing David, to hop into her car and she'll make it worth his while.

Anyone who has seen the trailer will know that Julie decides to commit suicide along with David by driving her car off a bridge. So far so straight forwards? David miraculously survives the crash but is heavily deformed with his face being supported by several internal metal plates. Obviously this makes him unattractive and the rest of the story sees him trying to return his life back to normal and win the love of his newfound Sophia. If only it was that simple! He’s also been charged with murder! It’s a conspiracy! Or is it?

Well that mostly sums up the trailer! Yes the trailer does literally shows the above 30 minutes of the film but the film is a whopping 2 and 1/2 hours long so prepare yourself for a long ride. It’s a very uneasy film to watch. Just when you think you know what’s going on, something else comes and changes what you just got your head to believe in and the film doesn’t follow any chronological order; I thought it did but it doesn’t. Because of this, the film looses its audience; if they aren’t patient (I tried very hard to be), they end up not caring what happens next and just want to see the ending. Yes the film does build up to an ending but by that time I think a lot of people would have switched off and after watching the ending, you either loved it or hated it. After just finished watching the film, I must admit I didn’t like it.

The problem I had with the film was, I didn’t care very much for the characters in the film. First up, David Aames; a selfish womanizing millionaire with his head shoved so far up his own backside, he doesn’t give a second thought to anyone or the consequence that may follow his own actions. Cameron Diaz’s Julie is an obsessed nymphomaniac who I felt sympathetic towards but ultimately thought she was just crazy. And then there’s Penelope Cruz playing Sophia! I’m sorry but she can’t act! She seems to grin a lot and every time she spoke, I was trying to make out what the hell she was saying! She spoke a sentence of Spanish in the film but I reckon she might have been better off speaking it throughout the whole film. I think given a different actress, Sophia’s character would have been a bit more interesting and I would have cared.

So who does that leave then? Well ‘no one’ to be honest. Kurt Russell plays a psychiatrist who tries to help David with his charge of murder and his role is confined to asking a series of questions and worrying about going home to his wife and two kids. Jason Lee is actually quite good as Brian, David’s best friend and has some of the better scenes in the film.

The film has some excellent visuals and like most Cameron Crowe movies, there is the slight overdose sprinkling of pop-culture in his filming. Just witness the opening scene in which Tom Cruise is in an empty New York; simply breathtaking.

Oh I did say it was a long ride at 2 and 30 minutes long right? Well it almost feels like it’s the slowest moving train you’ve ever been on that gets there in the time, but the journey was so boring it felt like an eternity. Or it seemed like the train was going through a dark tunnel with no light at the end of it. There were times within Vanilla Sky; I just wanted to jump off the train.

One thing that has played on my mind though, is the ability of the film to actually make you think about it. I know a lot of films recently have had the same effect but trust me, even if you think this film isn’t any good when you finish watching it, you will spend the next day or days thinking about what the hell the movie was about. Cameron Crowe has said this in is interviews and I hate to admit it, but it has worked. The film leaves you in a state where you are unsatisfied, confused, disturbed, and wanting answers. I can’t give you a straight answer whether I like it or not as I’m still undecided.

Being a film nut, I couldn’t help but think that this film was trying to be too many things at the same time, and I guess its tagline of ‘LoveHateDreamsLifeWorkPlayFriendshipSex’ reflects this.
If I had to describe or compare it to another film it would have to be in a form of a recipe. Firstly, one part love story, throw in a few ‘twist at the end’ movies (i.e. Sixth Sense, Angel Heart or anything like that), then add Total Recall, The Matrix and some Artificial Intelligence. Finally make it climb up Jacob’s Ladder. Hmm I think that just about sums it up, one Vanilla Sky to serve.

But if there’s something you should watch this year away from your normal unintelligent run of the mill action/love films, and you want a movie challenge, this is the one. Ok, so like me you might dislike it after you have finished watching it, but I can guarantee you, that you feel the same as me now the next day, still bloody confused and thinking about it. A total Mind F*CK! My head hurts!

Please, please, please go and see it and make up your own mind, its just one of those films. And if you disagree with me, let me know! I want people to say I’m wrong!

Update 4/2/01
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The original spanish version Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) was shown on Channel 4 in the early morning of Sunday. What did I think? I think it was better than Vanilla Sky. I know I know, people will disagree but I just thought it was more complete as a film and after watching this version, the story I was supposedly to understand in Vanilla Sky became clear.

Vanilla Sky had the Hollywood budget which made it more visually pleasing and it shows this original version up badly. Abre Los Ojos has less of a glossy feel to it and though some of the acting is not up to scratch, generally I thought the story was better executed! Some scenes were almost identical between the 2 versions but some scenes were actually better in the original. For instance, David Aames (Casear in this version) was less smirky and more of a complete basta*rd which showed in the way he treated his obsessive lover and the dialouge reflected this. Basically, it wasnt Tom Cruise smarming! :p

Definitely see this. Its not as nice to look at compared to Vanilla Sky, but the story works better.

SPOILER AHEAD! (START)
One thing I found quite surprising was the omission of one of the final scenes in Abre Los Ojos that never got transferred to the Vanilla Sky remake. In my opinion, this scene actually added to explaining of what had happened to the main characters life and how he wanted out! In Vanilla Sky, the omission of this didnt have quite the same impact! Instead, they just opted for the empty lobby.
SPOILER (END)
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