Media Mike's Archive

Baby Made a Bad, Bad Movie

"EYES WIDE SHUT"
The best part of this film takes place in the first 30 seconds, when, interwoven in the credits, there is a shot of Nicole Kidman slipping out of a gown and displaying a most perfect backside. Filmmaking of the highest order. But then the actors start to talk...and talk...and talk. And for three hours, we follow a perplexed Tom Cruise, (you can tell he is perplexed by his furrowed brow!) explore the steamy, yet oddly-sanitized, sleaze of the Big Apple. On paper, that sounds like a good time. A sexed-up version of "After Hours," my favorite out-on-the-town-all night NYC movie. However, that fuzzy New York-feeling lasted about as long as it took Ahmed Diallo to reach for his house keys.

The film has a promising beginning, with a big Christmas party, where it seems that the caterers spiked the punch with industrial strength Spanish Fly. Before you know it, Tom is hooking up with a little 2-on-1 super model fastbreak and Nicole is fending off a Hungarian hotdog. Just when it looks like the horns are going to be put on someone, Tom is called to revive a passed out "speedballing" hooker, (and I mean speedballing in the drug sense, not in the really fast sex worker sense). Party over.

The next night, while smoking pot, Tom & Nic start talking about the party. Now, let me interject a few thoughts about "the pot." I am not a big fan of "the pot." I don't really need a drug that makes Hostess Snowballs and Choc-a-diles any more tempting. But, the pot these kids are smoking is not old Arkansas skunk weed. It must be, as they say on the streets, some good s***! I say this, because after a few hits, Tom & Nic lapse into this Jeff Spicolian stupor that makes the very act of saying consonants a mighty chore. In the course of this scene, that seemly last a couple of days, Nic blurts (well, not blurts, nothing blurts in this film) out a fantasy she had about a sailor dude she had seen the previous summer. Now here is where the movie starts to breakdown for me. Tom’s reaction to this disclosure seems way out of proportion to the offense. You would have thought that his wife pulled a train with the Fifth Fleet, instead of just having a wandering eye. But this revelation is too for Tom and he can't escape this image of Nic and this Popeye rolling around. With this on his mind, we set off to a “Ozian” world of friendly hookers ("You don't have to pay!" He still does.), a queen hotel clerk (the best performance in the film) and a masked orgy that is as erotic as snaking your kitchen sink.

Here, the film then takes a nasty (watch for whiplash!) turn into a "who done it?" And for the next hour, you get that annoying single piano note playing over and over. Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, Dum, DUM!!!!!! Ouch!

After all whole lot of dum-dums, the film wraps up way too easily and leaves a lot more unanswered questions than answered ones. It is like the Christmas packages under Tom & Nic's tree, pretty to look at, but no doubt empty.

THE SKINNY: On the Randlemanland scale of one to ten, "Eyes Wide Shut" gets a five.