Sorry, this movie sucks

A Masterpiece!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

César (Eduardo Noriega) is talking to his psychiatrist Antonio (Chete Lera) in an institution while wearing a prosthetic mask. In flashbacks, he was a handsome vain playboy. He flirts with Sofia (Penélope Cruz) who his best friend Pelayo (Fele Martínez) likes a lot. His ex Nuria (Najwa Nimri) offers a ride and deliberately drives off the road. His face is horribly disfigured and Sofia finds it hard to deal with his frustrations. Then it turns into something more surreal.It's an interesting odd relationship movie for the first half. The movie keeps me involved but it also keeps me wondering about a creeping sense of something wrong with the story. The jumbled intercut timeline seems to be off and then it takes off. I definitely want more foreshadowing of the twist but it's still a fascinating turn. This plays like a compelling dream that I sensed as a dream before the reveal. Does that make sense?

A routine party is the beginning of a chilling trip for Cesar. One girl is after him, he goes after another, and before he knows it, very disturbing things are afoot. Open Your Eyes, the second film from 25-year-old Alejandro Amenabar, combines romance with a bit of horror, a heavy dose of psychological thriller, and a splotch of sci-fi into an unusual treat. Rather than satisfied, it leaves you slightly on edge.Cesar (Eduardo Noriega) is a handsome devil, all boyish charm with a very shy act to cover his self-assuredness. Indeed, he's reputed to never sleep with the same woman twice, so naturally when Nuria (Najwa Nimri) tries to bend that rule Cesar declines not so politely. Instead he hides behind Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the girl his best friend, Pelayo, came to the party with.Lucky not only with beauty, Cesar is also quite rich. He has three cars, but Pelayo (Fele Martinez) complains that Cesar only uses the cheap old VW bug to pick him up on the way to racquetball. Is this fact a humorous note, or does it point to a serious character flaw in Cesar? Later, at the party, he ends up monopolizing Sofia's attention, to Pelayo's disgust. When Sofia tells Cesar that if he were a loyal friend he would not try to sleep with her, Cesar replies that he is indeed a loyal friend, and therefore wants to have an affair with Sofia but be sure to prevent Pelayo from finding out about it. Rebuffed, Cesar regroups to try Sofia another day, and as he leaves her apartment he begins the ride of his life.Though the plot to Open Your Eyes is dense, to say much more would reveal too much already. On the other hand, the layers of reality that director Amenabar peels away are numerous, and no piece of the puzzle is the whole answer. Delectably unpredictable, the film casts Cesar as a spoiled rich kid and then makes us pity him, as he's accused of a crime he has no knowledge of and suffers grave disfigurement in an accident. Stuck in a cell, wearing a mask over his grotesque face, Cesar's only clues are the dreams he keeps having, and boy does he hated-reams! The first half hour is riveting, with an interesting romantic setup giving way to a most bizarre world of shame and denial. In the cell, a psychologist tries to coax information out of Cesar that could help in his trial for murder. From that point on the film is fairly hit-and-miss, though there are many more hits than misses, to be sure.The film's main strengths reside in unaffected acting and sparkling direction. All the leads, from the increasingly desperate psychologist, to Noriega, Cruz and Martinez, are very comfortable even within the strange world the director has placed them in. They do their best to respond as ordinary people to extraordinary situations, as the script pushes them farther and farther. The direction, particularly the cinematography, is solid throughout, with several splendid shots taking advantage of shadows and unusual points of view which always serve a narrative purpose.Clearly the major triumph of the film is in blending the mundane with the bizarre, and the truly bizarre, with such seamless transitions. In fact, this blending becomes a focal point of the plot itself, as it analyzes a cadre of colossal questions such as how we could really tell a dream from reality, or how we might know whether other people really exist. These are weighty questions and the film cannot be faulted for achieving no answers. Rather, it treats them as invisible boundaries the characters bump into, and emphasizes them enough so that the viewer may think about them on their own.Unfortunately, not all the strangeness is wholly original. Slightly reminiscent of The Game and Dark City, and made at the same time as these, Open Your Eyes also evokes standard thriller tricks, such as the scary mirror that changes what it shows each time you look. Though the visual direction maintains our interest, the plot lags at such times; the danger of showing incomprehensible things is that the audience may feel no connection to them. Invoking notions from deja-VI to cryogenics to very subtle commentary on guilt and the unconscious, however, the movie has enough freshness and focus in its own right to work as a cohesive whole.Perhaps the greatest shortcoming, ironically, is in the more mundane setup. Does the audience really care that a spoiled rich kid becomes unattractive and therefore may not be able to steal his best friend's girlfriend? At times, but at others the concept appears a ludicrous source of conflict. The movie is strongest in suggesting how bizarre the world is, or can become, and in this guise it's certainly worth watching. The conclusion poses an interesting choice for a character which, given the pace of technology, may become a real choice within a few centuries. Unlike most movies in its genre, the recent smash The Matrix included, Open Your Eyes finally works because it treats its questions about the world not as a springboard to standard film but as questions worth turning over in their own right.

many people that have seen Vanilla Sky, may be unaware that its a remake of this movie. now i had seen vanilla sky first and only watched this version out of complete curiosity. i have to say this film is far superior to vanilla sky in every way. yeah sure its subtitled, but so what, once you get past that fact, the result is a generally well made movie with an intriguing story, great acting and an atmospheric and tense soundtrack.one of the things i like about the movie is that unlike David in Vanilla Sky, Cesar, the main character in this seems much more like a normal person. i'm not saying that Tom Cruise's depiction isn't normal, but the way he seemed to always smile in every scene and also the fact that he seemed quite arrogant sort of made him kind of dislikeable. Cesar on the other hand seems more intelligent and more believable. we know both character's are very wealthy however in "open your eyes", his background is mentioned only once at the start of the movie. the character of Pelayo, Cesar's best friend, is also much more believable than his American counter part, Brian Shelby. Shelby just seems to be unable to take serious offence and doesn't seem upset that much when David tries to chat up Sofia. in the original, when Cesar begins chatting up Sofia (played also in this version by Penelope Cruz), Pelayo seems generally hurt and the audience does take sympathy for him. Nuria, Cesar's mentally ill ex girlfriend is also much more disturbing in this film.Another great thing about this film is the soundtrack. the soundtrack really does a great job of making the film seem more tense and atmospheric and kind of gives it a very dark and almost horror themed visual.anyone that is a fan of Vanilla Sky should definitely see Open Your Eyes. the effective performances and overall atmosphere of the film really makes this an unforgettable experience and a much better movie than Vanilla Sky

A fantasy story told in flashbacks by Cesar (E. Noriega) a handsome but self absorbed young, rich man. He is spending his days having fun and enjoying one night stands. The last one was with Nuria, a girl who's obsessed with Cesar. During a birthday party thrown for him, Cesar meets Sofia (P. Cruz). He's intrigued by the girl and spends the night at her apartment. In the morning, as he's going out from Sofias flat, he can see that jealous Nuria (N.Nimri) is waiting for him. She convinces him to go with her for a ride. he realize a bit too late, the jealous girl is trying to kill him and commit a suicide by driving the car off the cliff. The accident kills her and leaves Cesar disfigured.From that moment his life is a crazy roller-coaster of dreams mixed with reality. Cesar's accused of murder, and with a help of a psychiatrist he slowly starts to discover truth about his life. A complicated thriller with even more complicated ending.