Movie Review for 2001 A Space Odyssey
Synopsis: 2001: A Space Odyssey is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny, a quest for the infinite is is a dazzling, academy award winning visual achievement. A compelling drama of man vs machine, a stunning meld of music and motion it may be the masterwork of director Stanley Kubrick who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur c. Clarke and it will likely excite, inspire and enthrall for generations. To begin his voyage into the future Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape ancestry past. then leaps millennia via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever conceived into colonized space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman Keir Dullea into uncharted realms of space. Perhaps even into immortality open the pod bay doors, Hal let the awe and mystery of a journey unlike any other begin.
Rating: G
Run Time: 148 Minutes
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Dvd Extra’s: Theatrical Trailer, Languages: English and Francais, Subtitles: English, Francais, Espanol, Portugues.
Nudity Factor: None.
Of Note: There is no dialogue in the first 25 minutes of the movie (ending when a stewardess speaks at 25:38), nor in the last 23 minutes (excluding end credits). With these two lengthy sections and other shorter ones, there are around 88 dialogue-free minutes in the movie.
Recommendations:
Every time I tell someone I don’t really care for this movie, I am told that I should not call myself a movie lover. That this movie is a piece of art and that Kubrick is a genius. Fine, I can go alone with this being a piece of art. Visually, it still is stunning, even with the technology that we have today. But like any piece of art, the beauty of it is in the eye of the beholder. For me, this movie is just too slow. I would reference the pace of the movie, but there really is no pace. I just have a hard time sitting though the slow pace and usually spend a good portion of the movie fast forwarding through it, otherwise I have to watch this movie over several nights because I keep falling asleep. The one area that this movie shines is the soundtrack. The movie really does not have anything that it builds to, but you wouldn’t know that based on the soundtrack.
Overall, the pace and lack of real story keeps me from enjoying this movie. You really would have to be a sci-fi fan or should I say a classic sci-fi fan to really want to spend the time on this movie. If you are neither of those then you might have trouble making though the first 25 minutes of the movie.