Review - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

As a young teenager, my film experience consisted mostly of Mystery Men, The Lion King, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At the time, 2001: A Space Odyssey was simply too large and foreign a pill to swallow. More recently, with Metropolis, Eraserhead, Koyaanisqatsi and others viewed and enjoyed, I tried Kubrick's epic art film again.

2001: A Space Odyssey brilliantly uses the strengths of its medium to tell its story. Film is a visual medium, and 2001's story is told visually, with a great attention to subliminal detail and harmonic beauty. Each frame approaches perfection.

The atmospheric, often atonal score and fantastic landscapes place you in a world you've never experienced. It's heavy use of special effects and the frequency of long, purely visual sequences are daring and, more importantly, successful.

The film's real triumph, though, is its highly poetic exploration of deep philosophical ideas in the course of telling its epic story. It explores the notion of intelligence, along with mankind's purpose, importance, responsibility, and future.

It does this all through highly original means, from the prehistoric days of man to a thinking, talking computer to a rebirth at the hands of unseen aliens.

It's hard to find fault with any element of 2001: A Space Odyssey; it's characters, story, score, visual feast, pace, scenes, or dialogue. And, the filmmakers can hardly be blamed for incorrectly predicting the face of technology in 2001. As far as I can tell, the film's only weaknesses are its unnecessary intermission and an overly long sequence involving the third monolith and a journey through deep space.

By the way, for those left dumfounded by the film, here's the scoop: the movie is the epic tale of the evolution of mankind, as spurred by higher beings. These beings send monoliths to progress human evolution: one to turn ape into man, one to lead them from the moon to Jupiter (half a billion miles away), one to lead him from Jupiter to the infinite end of space, and one to transform him from man to a higher form of life: a powerful immortal, wholly conscious of all existence (the Star Child).