Tom Cruise has acted in three fairly enigmatic movies in the last few years: Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, and now VS.
VS is a science fiction movie, but not a space fiction. It doesn't try to create a rational story about the future. Rather, it takes the "how" by fiat, skipping past all the questions one might have, obviously aiming for some higher calling, a story about choice and chance and how life looks different from the perspective of death and dying.
This movie fails miserably. With its loosy-goosy plotting, we, the audience, find ourselves not very interested in Cruise's rich, creative yuppie magazine publisher, his whiney best friend writer (the same actor played Ben Affleck's whiney best friend in Chasing Amy), or more importantly, Penelope Cruz's impish distant but really hot as fire Latin lover. (An aside -- there is one scene where Cruise and Cruz embrace among the yellow leaves of Central Park in Autumn. I started thinking about the trailor for some weepie that Richard Gere and the retail store researcher Wynona Ryder did last year).
The only really good performance was Cameron Diaz, who could give Glenn Close a run for playing scary girlfriends.
This movie is warmed over The Matrix without the fight scenes. This movie tries to hold out the O Henry twist ending on par with the value of Sixth Sense. SS, a horror movie of sorts or at least a horror thriller, gave the viewer a tremendous satisfaction at its conclusion. Ah, that's what all that meant. For VK, I was just glad the damn thing was over.
One silly moment. Cruise is in a bar and he thinks a man is hitting on him. "Sorry, pal, I'm straight."
