Vanilla Sky
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: December 14, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
12
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
A mostly fascinating, often frustrating, boldly uncommercial Hollywood version of a boldly uncommercial art film. It's very atypical of the previous work of both director and star, and it's as personal a film, I suspect, as Cruise will ever make. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Highly entertaining, erotic science-fiction thriller that takes Mr. Crowe into Steven Spielberg territory. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's a film that you can take home and chew over later, both abrasive in its loudness and reflective in its fleeting, feminine moments of silence. Well done. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
An involving, sweetly touching love story, buoyed by Crowe's natural, poetic dialogue and his knack for writing characters (especially women) who feel like real people instead of plot devices. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This is the kind of movie you don't want to analyze until you've seen it two times. Now that I've seen it twice, I think I understand it, or maybe not. Certainly it's entertaining as it rolls along. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The picture has vitality, a fine cast and excellent craft Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Crowe's tantalizing film sticks with you. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Visually dazzling but ultimately dizzying ride, a trippy suspenser that gets tripped up on its own deja vu voodoo. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
What works in a quirky foreign film can look silly with expansive Hollywood treatment. Crowe is smart enough to know this, so it's baffling he chose Vanilla over richer cinematic tastes. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
I admire Cameron Crowe for daring to write and direct a movie as strange as Vanilla Sky. I lament the casting of Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in the leads. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Has moments that are eerily beautiful and genuinely moving -- and some that are surprisingly vulgar. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
Crowe's chilliest movie. In part this is by design. Like "Open Your Eyes," to which Crowe is mostly faithful, Vanilla Sky is a head trip that merges thriller, romance and science-fiction elements while playing with our notions of dreams and reality. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It reeks of unearned profundity, but I found it entertaining. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Lost in this beguiling labyrinth, Vanilla Sky is more fascinating as a bit of evidence than as a movie -- and ultimately less pleasing than most audiences will want. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Resembles a fast-and-flashy variation on "The Sixth Sense," with touches of "The Matrix" as a bonus. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Crowe, for his part, is decency itself, but unlike Amenábar he's a pop romantic with no stomach or aptitude for noir. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Though Vanilla Sky is smoothly and professionally done, even audiences who haven't seen the original will sense there is something off in the translation. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
The film's aim -- to dazzle and inspire -- is sapped by Cruise's vein-popping, running-the-marathon performance. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Like an over-packed three-scoop cone -- it melts into a mess while we're still slurping away. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
For better or worse, Vanilla Sky is a genuine, albeit jejune, statement of star consciousness -- blustery with self-awe and feverish with cataclysmic self-doubt. Read full review
40
Washington PostDesson Thomson
For all the filmmakers' efforts, this project is something of an artistic albatross. It's a conundrum that doesn't get answered until a sort of help-the-audience Cliffs Notes final scene, in which we learn Everything. But by then, more than a few of us may be wondering, was it all really worth the trouble? Read full review
40
New Times (L.A.)Robert Wilonsky
Crowe renders David's dream (and its accompanying nightmare) so literal we can't help but leave the theater feeling as though we've been lectured to, told how to feel and what to think. And for an audience, that's a bit of a nightmare. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Crowe preserves the original film's plot twists and turns, but his version lumbers when it should be whipping along, daring you to keep up. The wall-to-wall pop music soundtrack eventually becomes oppressive, and Cruise's oily smile doesn't really constitute a characterization. Read full review
40
Film ThreatGareth Von Kallenbach
My suggestion is to avoid this film and instead rent Open Your Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) the film upon which Vanilla Sky was based. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeJay Carr
May not emerge as the biggest disaster of the holiday movie season, if only because we haven't yet seen all the other year-end films. But it is a huge high-energy misfire, bringing Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Crowe to earth with a thud.
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The title doesn't hint at the unsavory mess the film actually is. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
If Crowe's eyes are open, he seems to have directed most of Vanilla Sky with his mind wide shut. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Probably the most garishly masochistic star turn since Mel Gibson's "The Man Without a Face." It could also be the most baroque chick flick ever made, the freakazoid spawn of "An Affair to Remember" and "The Matrix." Read full review
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
It's no wonder that Crowe can't generate any real feeling. The narrative is alien to him on every level. The ear-grating dialogue is a good indication that he didn't know what he was doing; he's usually pitch-perfect. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Its tone is unquenchably pretentious, and its scale is overblown.
20
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Who would have thought that Cameron Crowe had a movie as bad as Vanilla Sky in him? It's a punishing picture, a betrayal of everything that Crowe has proved he knows how to do right. Read full review
20
TimeRichard Corliss
Every ambitious picturemaker should be allowed one wild misfire at no lasting cost to his reputation. Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) can now put this aside and go back to making good films.
10
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Overblown and idiotic, this new "erotic thriller" is neither erotic nor thrilling; it's long, boring and self-indulgent. Read full review
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