Worst movies 1: "Eyes Wide Shut"

Stanley Kubrick's last film is a total enigma: how can such an experienced director make such a bad movie as "Eyes Wide Shut"? What an incredible waste of resources and time!

There are no characters to care about and no story to tell. The actors try SO hard to make us think this is an important film, but they're not really "method", are they? It all stays on the surface, they grimace and cry and try to make us feel something, but I find it all quite ludicrous. Tom Cruise's appeal totally eludes me.

And the "orgy" at the mansion? Titillating? Stirring? Nah, anything BUT! It tries so hard to meld sex with a sense of threat and forbidden realms, but it is more like HC Andersen's story "The Emperor's New Clothes": the images try to cover the empty hole where a story should be... (If you want to see a truly interesting portrait of sexuality in a 'mainstream' movie, see "Secretary" from 2002 with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader instead.)

And the soundtrack?!?! Playing a Romanian religious service backwards? My how exciting (NOT!). And that annoying piano tinkle that tries to imply a threat that is never realised, and is played over and over way too many times? (Only redeeming musical feature: Shostakovich "Waltz No. 2" from "Jazz Suite".)

So why did I watch it again? Well it has some of the best colour photography I've ever seen! The cinematography has a kind of super-realism to it; take for instance the scene in Sydney Pollack's den - the pool table, covered in red rather than the usual green felt, and the green lights over it, and the blue light coming through the windows in the panelled room... (According to Imdb.com, this scene, only 13.5 minutes long, took three weeks to shoot.) The N.Y.C. street scenes were actually shot on sets in the UK, and the film was 'pushed' two steps, which is why the signs "glow" in such a super-real way: absolutely gorgeous!

But with no content, it is like putting stunnning wrapping paper around an empty box.

Well there is one actor I like - Alan Cumming as the hotel desk clerk. Probably because he puts a twist of humour in this movie that takes itself way too seriously...

Unless you want to admire the cinematography, don't waste your time on this film - picking navel-lint would be more rewarding.

/Kris C