Vanilla Sky

It plays better than it reviews — the watch lands harder than the write-ups suggest.

• “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.”

  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer · 83

• “Highly entertaining, erotic science-fiction thriller that takes Mr. Crowe into Steven Spielberg territory.”

  Stephen Holden, The New York Times · 80

• “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.”

  Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle · 78

• “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.”

  Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald · 75

• “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.”

  Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times · 75