I am not one to insist that films be entertaining or uplifiting or profound or complex or subtle or passionate or... I am one however to insist that films be interesting. Eyes Wide Shut was a bore. Kubrik Shmubrik!

Eyes Wide Shut is an amazing tapestry of ideas. But, alas, as a film, it fails. The problem is not solely due to the awkward performances by Cruise and Kidman, but actually due to Kubrick's own direction. While a master of mis-en-scene, atmosphere, and visuals, Kubrick has always been an emotionally distant director. This is probably due to Kubrick's own personality, but his misanthropic tendencies work in films like Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, and Paths of Glory, due to his understanding of craft and touch for cold feeling that isolates the viewer when it is supposed to. He is emotionally distant in a good way, like a Radiohead song. But while Kubrick's tactics of isolation worked in films with cold feelings and misanthropy, it fails in Eyes Wide Shut. The film is supposed to be about the inner-workings of the human brain, and specifically, the part that can bring out intense emotions. The problem is Kubrick seems so disinterested in his own characters, as well as Cruise and Kidman, that to connect emotionally, which a character study needs, fails. It is a vast pool of ideas, but nothing to string them together.… Expand

Kubrick finally went to the place that he has always bordered on. A pit of nonsense due too a plot that doesn't begin or end and nudity to a point where I just thought, Okay it is not possible to have that much naked in one room. Creepy and cool build up to a wreck of a inapplicable ending.

One of the best films ever! The most addictive film, the closing of a genius watch it again and again.

Why does it seem like I was the only one of my friends that like this movie? That piano alone scared the crap out of me!

Liked this movie a lot, it always had me interested and a must see for all movie fans.

Very subtle and beautiful movie. try to sit deeply in your sofa and enjoy it. do not give comment until you've done it. It is great!

Oh Stanley, Where Art Thou? Didn't you know the excesses of the rich are not worthy of examination. This was your worst film, but it's still better than the best of others.

No this is not one of Kubrick's better films, but it is still one of the finer films of the decade and certainly the best of 1999. Kubrick was not just a great filmmaker, he was one of the great visionary artists of cinema...and despite the huge faults in this movie, it did not deserve the bashing it got from many major critics. It is not meant to be an entertaining and fun way to waste time. It is a work of art by a major artist who has something to say.… Expand

It's a typical Kubrick film. By that I mean excellent :)

Despite the MPAA's forced cuts, "Eyes Wide Shut" remains a truly great film. Every scene seems somehow deliciously surreal; the music adds to the dreamlike mood. I highly recommend it.

This movie did not go any where and was a drag to watch. the dialogue was week and the point of the film was missing completely. The editing and style of it were the only thing the movie had going for it but even that was worse than any of Kubrick's other movies.

Kubrick makes something he has never made before, dumb fun. Dumb only to his standards but fun by any standards.

Hey look at me! I'm comparing Stanley to Stanley! I'm not gonna let any of his films stand on his own! Who am i? I'm every user reviewer on this board! Great movie though. How can you compare this film to his previous efforts? He never made the same film, so they should be taken that way.

It took several viewings for this one to grow on me. But with each viewing it presents itself in a new and exciting way. Very few, even in Kubrick's stuff, can so subtly play out and reveal new levels of depth like this film. At the very least, I would ask those who hated it, or even found it to be nothing more than a moderate success to trust in Kubrick's skill. Keep watching it and you'll see that even at the end, he was at the top of his game, if not even a little better.… Expand

A genuinely superb film, that goes over the heads of most of those who do not like it.

Yes, it has its faults, yes Cruise and Kidman aren't very good, yes it's implausible that Bill could simply have been allowed into the morgue with no ID check. But I'll be damned if the film doesn't work as an intriguing mystery. Provocative, symbolically valid and altogether unique. Is it maybe a tacit indictment of the real-life personae of the leading couple? Whatever Kubrick's intentions, this is possibly one of his best films.… Expand

I love these films. Bizarre intrigue, Kubrick at his best. Perfectly written, amazing developments. What we all wonder about high society, and what high society wonders about.

Grauenvoll - horrible nothing else to say, only horrible es gibt sonst nichts zu sagen.

Kubrick's final and most elegant architectural--psychological as well as physical--exposition on the interweaving of primordial instincts and human intelligence(the union of which gave us what's known as creativity and civilization). Here Kubrick blows away the mist of social refinement and takes us on a dreamlike journey which climaxes in a pagan orgy synethisizing instincts for lust and power with privelege of wealth and sophistication. It's a vision of a marriage made in hell between savagery and cultivation; a glimpse into the interior where our entangled subconscious conspires and plots its tricks; the subconscious is as inaccessible to us as the corridors of the filthy rich. It's also a fraudulent game of the rich playing Wizard of Oz, a gaudy and priveleged pretension of spicing sex up with quasi-ritualistic gobbledygook. Freudian in its sexual probing, Kafkaesque in its critique of power. Tom Cruise is never more than adequate, Kidman fares somewhat better, but both lack emotional depth; and the final cute exchange is just plain bad, but that's merely one sccond in this otherwise supremely commandeered movie. … Expand

Cannot compare Kubrick to any other director...he truly was an "alien."

Pretty awesome if you examine it closely. But sucks if you just take it at face value. Like Shakespeare in that way.

I just watched it again, and read Introducing Sociology
A Review of Eyes Wide Shut
by Tim Kreider It's such a great review of the movie's reviews (and it's free and online, though originally from "Film Quarterly".) I just had to come here and, I see, finally (over 2 years after joining) post my first review in order to mention it - it's such a great read-perhaps better than the movie itself.

It's pretty awesome to see how a thorough analysis makes such a mockery of the run-of-the-mill reviewer's reviews - those from the New York times and Washington Post.

The movie is chock full of masterful iconography. While I missed little of the visual symbology, such as the use of spaciousness, and evil symbology, I didn't pick up on most of the linguistic symbols, from witty names like that of the profligate "Doctor Bill" and ruling class "Victor" to the commercial signage.

The greatest strength of the film is the social criticism angle - like 'Pig Hunt', which I played a tiny part in producing. It lays bare an exquisite panorama of crassness and wretchedness, like pig adorned in diamonds and pearls.

Somehow, the acting was believable and I was drawn into the movie, even as the characters came across as the flattened sterotypes that Kubrick clearly wanted.… Expand

Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut is a deeply profound film that blankets reality with eroticism like a dark glaucoma of the mind and is the closing of perhaps a perfect filmography of an old master always trying to change the form.

Stanley Kubrick, a famous director, turns into a dirty old man before he dies. This movie is probably about his own fantasies. It is just sickening. What is the point of this movie ? It is not even interesting. Every man has fantasies about sexual experiences with other women, and on a daily basis. What else is new ?

El director de solo obras maestras se salió con la suya de nuevo. Su última obra lo encontró tan genial, hosco y detallista como siempre. Las actuaciones también fueron obra suya. Salud KubricK!

Eyes Wide Shut is impressive cinematic work. Maybe it's not Kubrick's masterpiece but the its two lead has a charm, especially the conversation between them on the bed. **** Probably but everything is there.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This film was very blame in its firsts years, someone says that its the most simple project of Kubrick. Es, anyway, a wonderful movie, very similar of the films that the director did in his first works. In my opinion, the two and something hours that this movie longs, are pretty short, because it ends of a very cut way, but also very mystical, and we don't know if what the doctor have seen was just a dream or it was really what happened. Charming sensual… Expand

Ever wonder what the real drama? what a drama movie? Eyes Wide Shut is the perfect example of drama, fear, obsession, passion, etc. Perhaps as the movie progresses you are wondering, what does this have to do? but this is one of those films that eventually will show that every action has a reaction