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Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky is an exciting, original, intelligent film…oh wait, no, my mistake, that’s Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos). Vanilla Sky is a limp remake, like a cover version of a good song by an X-factor contestant. It hits the right notes, in more or less the right order, but there’s no soul and no subtlety.
In case you’ve never seen Vanilla Sky or the original, the film concerns a playboy millionaire, David Aames ( Tom Cruise) who is disfigured in a car crash caused by his jealous ex-lover (Cameron Diaz) and in future is trying to work out why he is in prison through discussions with a psychologist (Kurt Russell). Mystery, confusion and dream sequences abound.
Vanilla Sky is Tom Cruise’s fault. Apparently he was on the phone buying the rights for the remake before the credits had rolled when he watched Open Your Eyes. But is Vanilla Sky any more than a vanity vehicle for Cruise himself? His chance to cash in on someone else’s good idea, with himself in the starring role. He spends much of the film disfigured or behind a mask. The chance to do some ‘real acting’ he probably thought to himself. The trouble is, while Cruise does a fine job as the all-American hero in films like Mission Impossible and Minority Report, someone should tell him wearing a mask, laughing and SHOUTING A LOT does not make for ‘real acting’.
The direction is adequate. I’ve never been a big fan of Cameron Crowe, I’ll admit, and his ‘written for the screen and directed by’ credit annoyed me (how did he write it? I doubt he even translated it). Penelope Cruz somehow manages to play the exact same part, worse, and this sums up the film, really; it’s exactly the same, but not as good. The over-explanation ruins the ending. Some of the dialogue is excruciating, especially between Cruise and Cruz, in its attempts to be playful. Kurt Russell’s character, McCabe never rings true, either, but that is more excusable since
To its credit, it does have a reasonable sound track including radiohead. I do think music can make a movie, so I will resist the churlish impulse to say that anyone with a quid for the jukebox could have done as well.
In the end it is the pointlessness of the film which irks me. Why does the world need an English language remake of Open Your Eyes? Why does it need an English language remake of every half decent non-English film (or not-at-all-decent horror film)? The American film industry is one of the biggest in the world, with tons of good films from Casablanca to There Will Be Blood, it doesn’t need to poach from Spain or anywhere else, so why does it? I realise I’m about seven years too late with this little rant as it relates to Vanilla Sky, and the utter pointlessness of the remake was why I’d never seen it before, and I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered now.
2/5
Vanilla Sky is an exciting, original, intelligent film…oh wait, no, my mistake, that’s Open Your Eyes (Abre los Ojos). Vanilla Sky is a limp remake, like a cover version of a good song by an X-factor contestant. It hits the right notes, in more or less the right order, but there’s no soul and no subtlety.
In case you’ve never seen Vanilla Sky or the original, the film concerns a playboy millionaire, David Aames ( Tom Cruise) who is disfigured in a car crash caused by his jealous ex-lover (Cameron Diaz) and in future is trying to work out why he is in prison through discussions with a psychologist (Kurt Russell). Mystery, confusion and dream sequences abound.
Vanilla Sky is Tom Cruise’s fault. Apparently he was on the phone buying the rights for the remake before the credits had rolled when he watched Open Your Eyes. But is Vanilla Sky any more than a vanity vehicle for Cruise himself? His chance to cash in on someone else’s good idea, with himself in the starring role. He spends much of the film disfigured or behind a mask. The chance to do some ‘real acting’ he probably thought to himself. The trouble is, while Cruise does a fine job as the all-American hero in films like Mission Impossible and Minority Report, someone should tell him wearing a mask, laughing and SHOUTING A LOT does not make for ‘real acting’.
The direction is adequate. I’ve never been a big fan of Cameron Crowe, I’ll admit, and his ‘written for the screen and directed by’ credit annoyed me (how did he write it? I doubt he even translated it). Penelope Cruz somehow manages to play the exact same part, worse, and this sums up the film, really; it’s exactly the same, but not as good. The over-explanation ruins the ending. Some of the dialogue is excruciating, especially between Cruise and Cruz, in its attempts to be playful. Kurt Russell’s character, McCabe never rings true, either, but that is more excusable since
WARNING: "Vanilla Sky" spoilers below
he is an imaginary construct of Cruise’s character’s subconscious
In the end it is the pointlessness of the film which irks me. Why does the world need an English language remake of Open Your Eyes? Why does it need an English language remake of every half decent non-English film (or not-at-all-decent horror film)? The American film industry is one of the biggest in the world, with tons of good films from Casablanca to There Will Be Blood, it doesn’t need to poach from Spain or anywhere else, so why does it? I realise I’m about seven years too late with this little rant as it relates to Vanilla Sky, and the utter pointlessness of the remake was why I’d never seen it before, and I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered now.
2/5