Hey there everybody, Harry here. I have a couple of reviews of EYES WIDE SHUT coming up on the site tonight including Moriarty's... but first here is I Caramba's....
Never wrote before, so this is a newbie review. If you print it, call me I. Caramba.
Just saw the critics screening of Eyes Wide Shut tonight. I'm a big Kubrick fan, and all I can say is, I'm disappointed. I like Kubrick, and I had no idea what the movie would be like, good or bad. So I went to it without any expectations or preconceptions, and the following is my gut reaction (not having read any reviews). The movie is 2 1/2 hours long, and you spend the first hour wondering when it will get interesting. Then there is the scene with all the people in hoods & masks, and you think, now it will start to pick up; but then whatever mystery there is quickly dissipates. At the end you wonder, why was there all the hype about this movie? A lot of the dialogue is uninteresting and banal, the plot is predictable, and there's almost no suspense. There are all these scenes which are meant to provoke an unsettled feeling, a "Blue Velvet"/David Lynch type thing where you wonder about the "dark underbelly" of the lives of the wealthy & cosmopolitan. But it all falls flat & seems silly. If you want to see a better movie about the "dark underbelly" of suburban life, rent Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt." And if you want to see a more interesting & unsettling movie about sexual obsession & jealousy, rent the Spanish movie "Open Your Eyes" (if it ever comes to video). At least in that movie, there are genuine surprises, and you are kept wondering what is going on.
