Vanilla Sky

This review contains spoilers.  If you don't want the movie ruined, don't read any further.

Caught this on cable with my mom and grandma.

The beginning of the movie leaves you wondering what's going on, and it tries to take you back to that state from time to time.  It starts with Cruise in the middle of Manhatten with absolutely nobody else on the street.  How in the world is that possible?  Well, it's not, as the ending makes clear.

From the previews it sounded like this movie was gonna be simply Cruise trying to clear his name from an assumed homicide.  Is the Diaz character really dead?  Is she still around, tormenting Cruise?  How can he prove that?

But, no.  The plot has nothing to do with that.  I don't know who put that preview together, but it gives you absolutely no inkling for the plot of the movie.

The story is told out of order, which adds to the confusion.

Cruise' character is a super-rich guy.  We learn early on that Cameron Diaz is his booty call.  And early into the movie he falls in love with Penelope Cruz.  Life is rough when you have that much money.

Then, there's Diaz' accident-suicide that's hinted at in the previews.  And Cruise is horribly disfigured.

So, part of the movie is him learning to live with his disability.  But then he finds a cosmetic treatment that fixes his face.  But when he's talking to the state psychologist he forgets that's happened and he's still wearing his mask.  And then he apparently got Diaz and Cruz mixed up?  Or is there a conspiracy that switched all the photos?

In the end, we learn that all that confusion is caused by the writers taking the Freshman English Composition Student's Cop-out Ending #2.  (#1 being the author kills everyone.)

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Pay Per View.  Was mildly interesting, but ended up a big cop-out.  The previews have nothing to do with the film.

Editing history:

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