I would urge all of the REAL movie fans to see both and see how very small differences can change the viewer's overall sense of the film.
I saw Vanilla Sky first and thought it was pretty good. I did think that it left more unresolved, which isn't always bad, but I felt that the resolution in Open Your Eyes was exactly what was appropriate for the movie. I also felt that the scenery-chewing that Tom Cruise did in several scenes actually detracted from the feel of the story line. There is a bar scene that was almost identical in the two films. The only difference is that the tone and body language of the main character and the bartender, which makes the Vanilla Sky version quite confrontational while in the Spanish version the scene plays as a simple faux pas on the part of the bartender that is quickly resolved.
In general, I think the American version suffers from inferior direction and poorer acting. Penelope Cruise is excellent in both. Cruise and Kurt Russell seem to have decided that their roles needed to big bigger and more emotional. They were wrong.
I saw Vanilla Sky first and thought it was pretty good. I did think that it left more unresolved, which isn't always bad, but I felt that the resolution in Open Your Eyes was exactly what was appropriate for the movie. I also felt that the scenery-chewing that Tom Cruise did in several scenes actually detracted from the feel of the story line. There is a bar scene that was almost identical in the two films. The only difference is that the tone and body language of the main character and the bartender, which makes the Vanilla Sky version quite confrontational while in the Spanish version the scene plays as a simple faux pas on the part of the bartender that is quickly resolved.
In general, I think the American version suffers from inferior direction and poorer acting. Penelope Cruise is excellent in both. Cruise and Kurt Russell seem to have decided that their roles needed to big bigger and more emotional. They were wrong.