Those who love it as passionately as I do realize this film is about more than dialogue, plot, or space ships. Its uniqueness permits it to transcend the ordinary, becoming a movie not about one human but the entire human species.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:50
Fresh:48
Rotten:2
Average Rating:8.8/10
Consensus: One of the most influential of all sci-fi films -- and one of the most controversial -- Stanley Kubrick's 2001 is a delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity -- and folly -- of mankind.
Runtime: 2 hrs 39 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Synopsis: A four-million-year-old black monolith is discovered on the moon, and the government (while hiding the situation from the public) sends a team of scientists on a fact-finding mission. Eighteen... A four-million-year-old black monolith is discovered on the moon, and the government (while hiding the situation from the public) sends a team of scientists on a fact-finding mission. Eighteen months later, another team is sent to Jupiter in a ship controlled by the perfect HAL 9000 computer to further investigate the giant object--but on this trip something goes terribly wrong. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is a masterpiece of filmmaking. Director and (with Arthur C. Clarke) co-screenwriter Stanley Kubrick has created a visual and aural spectacle that stands as one of the greatest achievements ever put on celluloid. The film begins with the "Dawn of Man" segment, about the evolution of apes, and then ventures into the future, taking a look at what the world might be like in the first year of the 21st century. Kubrick's film is a triumph of technological storytelling, with stunning sets and a brilliant, overwhelming soundtrack. Long dialogue-free scenes sparkle with indelible images backed by powerful orchestral music, culminating in an unforgettable, inscrutable tale of birth and rebirth, human evolution and artificial intelligence, the past and the future. [More]
Starring: Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Gary Lockwood, Daniel Richter
Starring: Keir Dullea, William Sylvester, Gary Lockwood, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, Robert Beatty, Douglas Rain
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Screenwriter: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Reviews for 2001: A Space Odyssey
If I were pressed to come up with the best film from my favorite director, it could well be this one.
One of the most mysterious, talked about, and intellectually stimulating films of all time.
If you can surrender to it, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is a mind-shaper.
It expresses the hope that we'll soon be done with being idiotic ape creatures and can look forward to superior incarnations.
In this science fiction masterpiece, Stanley Kubrick tracks the odyssey of mankind, from the dawn of man four million years ago to the exploration of deep space.
2001 will doubtless retain its mythic resonance -- an optimistic prediction of first contact with other, presumably wiser, life forms -- long after we've stopped scribbling that cluster of numbers in our checkbooks.
If you ask me, Kubrick's effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which were made by human hands, are still unsurpassed.
Now, seen in the actual 2001, it's less a visionary masterpiece than a crackpot Looney Tune, pretentious, abysmally slow, amateurishly acted and, above all, wrong.
It still makes a spectacular impression today, and we can easily see how it influenced future films...
Few works in cinema can prudently and soberly be described as religious experiences: 2001 A Space Odyssey is one of them.
2001 compares with, but does not best, previous efforts at science fiction.
Its intelligent attempt at exploring human development is as relevant today - long after the date the movie's climactic events are set - as when it was released in 1968.
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