essence and sensibility; Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe team up again

Vanilla Sky (15)Cameron CroweHHH In The Bedroom (15)Todd FieldHHHH The Glass House (15)Daniel SackheimHH Made (15)Jon FavreauHHH Shooters (18)Colin Teague, Glenn DurfortH Lovely Rita (15)Jessica HausnerHHH It's the kind of news that sends my heart plummeting. Hollywood decides to hack itself an English-language remake of Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), the icily intelligent film by Alejandro Amenbar, who later wrote and directed The Others.

In the central role of a vain, wealthy egotist is the industry's own Mr Bland, Tom Cruise. And who will direct this parable of human frailty and self-obsession? None other than Cameron Crowe, a cutesy sort of fellow who last worked with Cruise on the cockle-warming Jerry Maguire.

So I am relieved and surprised to report that the finished movie, enigmatically re-titled Vanilla Sky, is really not bad at all. Crowe, who also wrote the script, liberally scatters the movie with plenty of his own ideas and personality, some of which complement the picture; and some of which don't. As usual, Crowe crams in as many pop-culture references as he can. In some instances, their use is ingenious and effective - for example, the scene in which Cruise and glossy-locked love interest Penelope Cruz saunter through a New York snowscape lifted straight from Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' album cover.

There's more humour in the film, mainly courtesy of a generously fleshed-out best-friend character (Jason Lee). A bit of light relief is certainly welcome - Amenbar's version was rather po-faced - but it leaves Crowe with less tension to play with. The main problem with his take on the story is his overwhelming niceness as a director. While Amenbar treated his characters with the clinical disdain that they largely deserved, Crowe always wants to see the best in people. As a result, we're left at odds over what we're supposed to feel about Cruise's character. He's clearly a shallow, narcissistic poseur - surely we're not supposed to feel sympathy for him?

Cruise plays David Aames, a young, hunky publishing executive whose charmed New York existence gains him access to bed-action with just about any girl he fancies. His current partner for between-the- sheets shenanigans is Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz, giving easily the best performance in the film), a good-time-gal who sees David as her future. His indifference slices through her patina of confidence and she begins to unravel, eaten up by the knowledge he's interested in another woman.

The other woman is Sofia (Cruz, who played the same role in the Spanish-language original) a doe-eyed show-pony who is given a few quirky lines of dialogue so we know she's more than just attractive packaging. But David makes one decision that looks like it will ruin everything - he accepts a lift with Julie, who, unhinged with rejection, crashes her car, killing herself and horribly disfiguring him.

It's round about this point things start to get weird for David. He's charged with murder and we see him recounting his story in a prison cell to a sympathetic psychiatrist. But is murder possible if you've lost touch with reality and seem to be living in a nightmare? The plot is as labyrinthine and bewildering as it was with Amenbar at the helm but Crowe adds a few little touches that make the humdinger of a twist at the end more satisfying.

Entertaining though it may be, Vanilla Sky can't help but seem laboured and over-complicated next to Todd Field's elegant domestic thriller, In The Bedroom. An outstanding pair of performances from Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek form the basis of this movie. Matt and Ruth Fowler are a respectable middle-class couple whose peaceful life on the coast of Maine is destroyed by the death of their son, Frank (Nick Stahl).

Home for the summer, Frank has been working as a lobster fisherman to earn money for college, while contemplating a year out to pursue a burgeoning relationship with a local single mother (Marisa Tomei). His death cuts his parents adrift. Their stable relationship is suddenly a minefield of hostility and aggression and they go from spouses to strangers in a matter of weeks.

The acting is impeccable - what could have been an emotionally gruelling tale is a gripping and suspenseful piece of storytelling, and this is largely due to Field's intelligent directing and the honesty of the actors. But it's not just about the performances - visually, the film is striking. The gorgeous Maine countryside and its sleepy suburban sprawl are both used to great effect. This is an all-round class act. And yet, for such a good movie, it's curiously unmemorable.

No such problem with The Glass House, unfortunately. Its awfulness will no doubt be etched into my mind forever. Leelee Sobieski plays sullen teen Ruby Baker in this latter day Hansel And Gretel story. She and younger brother Rhett are orphaned when their parents drive off the side of a cliff. The kids are off-loaded to guardians, Terry and Erin Glass, who live in a glistening modernist edifice totally unsuited to children.

Before long, it become clear all is not right with the Glasses. Erin shoots up on the sly and Terry, when he's not salivating over his new ward, is making furtive phone calls to juggle his mounting debts. Could it be that the Glasses have set their sights on the children's inheritance? Frankly, it's hard to care. Sobieski gives such a flat, charmless performance she looks like she's been helping herself to Erin's stash. And the whole premise for the movie is completely ludicrous. There must be easier ways of embezzling money than having to drain the bank accounts of a couple of stroppy kids. This glass house is built on pretty shaky foundations.

Actor/screenwriter Jon Favreau makes his directorial debut with Made, a boisterous crimedy that revives his successful onscreen partnership with Vince Vaughn. While this film might not have the Brat Pack pizzazz or originality of their 1996 project Swingers, it's still rather funny. Favreau has a fine ear for dialogue and gleefully pokes fun at his inept aspiring gangster characters. On the down side is Vaughn's character, arguably the most irritating cinematic creation since Mr Bean. Then there's the fact Favreau has clearly watched every episode of The Sopranos, notebook in hand. But I suppose if you're going to show your influences, they might as well be the best.

For yet another British take on the gangster genre, we are treated to Shooters, in which an unlovely group of thugs brandish guns and shout "Fackin'ell!" at each other. It's a grisly piece of work, without a trace of originality. It apparently took six years to write. Give me five minutes with a semi-automatic weapon and I'd re- write the thing in no time.

A more provocative, certainly more enlightened take on screen violence comes in the form of Lovely Rita, a domestic horror set in the crushing tedium of a parochial Austrian suburb. Rita is an outsider, a teenage misfit who sticks out all the more next to the monotony of the lives around her. Due to awkward sexual awakenings and a suffocating family life, Rita is a ticking time-bomb. A truly shocking and disconcerting film.

Shooters is out now; all other films are released on Friday

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