2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Genre

Mystery | Sci-Fi

Director

Stanley Kubrick

Country

USA | UK

Cast

Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Margaret Tyzack, Robert Beatty, Sean Sullivan, Frank Miller, Edward Bishop, Edwina Carroll, Penny Brahms, Heather Downham, Maggie d'Abo, Chela Matheson, Judy Keirn, Alan Gifford, Ann Gills, Vivian Kubrick, Kenneth Kendall

Storyline

When a large black monolith is found beneath the surface of the moon, the reaction immediately is that it was intentionally buried. When the point of origin is confirmed as Jupiter, an expedition is sent in hopes of finding the source. When Dr. David Bowman (Keir Dullea) discovers faults in the expeditionary spacecraft's communications system, he discovers more than he ever wanted to know.

Opinion

Unpopular opinion coming in 3, 2, 1... "2001: A Space Odyssey" isn't perfect as people say or want you to believe. To be honest I just found the whole thing dreadfully tedious.

Some aspects of the film are arguably perfect, or almost. I'm talking about the objective aspects. The film indeed has gorgeous, out-of-this-world cinematography, breathtaking special effects for its era, a glorious, sublime musical score, dazzling colours and fine acting.

That sure is something, but it's not enough. The screenplay seems to be an optional, because I wasn't able to find one. Well, there is one, a very, very, very short one dragged on and on for two hours and a half.

A visionary tale for a 1960s film, the story is simple but I guess it's supposed to be profound. According to those who have understood the film, one is supposed to ask oneself a lot of questions, like what are those mysterious black monoliths, where did they came from, and what do they do, but I just didn't care neither about the answers nor about the questions.

Kubrick wanted to warn about the destiny of man in space, but we all know when films try to predict the future they always fail. Nowadays science is too busy trying to save the Earth from an environmental catastrophe to organize trips to Jupiter. Still I'm not saying it wasn't a great idea back in the '60s.

The evolution of monkeys, and seeing how these animals slowly learn to use a bone as an object surely is interesting. But like I just said it happens slowly, and for slowly I mean it takes the damn monkey about 20 minutes. In the meantime they also try to fight the monolith.

I can't wait to know what you think about this masterpiece.