Review of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Dillinger P — 10 Mar 2015

I don't think I would be shunned for saying 2001: A Space Odyssey is the quintessential Sci Fi film ever made, even to this day. From its opening shot to its final psychadelic moments, it manages to inspire just about every film that proceeds it, dont believe me, lets list them, Alien, Aliens (Literally the score and some sound effects are completely plaigerised), Moon, Sunshine, Inception, Interstellar, The Simpsons, Star Trek.

.. (Ten minutes later) So its been stolen from, made fun of and parodied to quite some extent, now it doesnt take a genius to work out why. Because its a fucking masterpiece. 2001 isnt a film, it is an experience.

Watching this huge film is a test, it has so many themes, alien life forms, the god complex, A.I. gone wrong, cold war fallout, evolution, betrayal, the meaning of life, it is to an extent less a straight forward film and more a thesus on life itself.

With this Kubrick basically goes to town on his filming ability, using massive rotating sets, wonderful model work, gorilla costumes, a very frightening looking red dot and well the famous monolith sequence.

2001 could be easily broken down into 4 sections, The beginning of man, where we see 2 rival families of apes fight over land and water, The discovery of alien life form on the moon, the Jupiter mission with a demonic A.

I. named HAL and well the meaning of life. All open to interpritation of course. So to sum it all up. At the dawn of time a monolith appears on earth and influences us a beings to evole, 5 million years later and we have now found the same monolith projecting signals to a far off region near Jupiter, forcing a company to send out a team to investigate, the mission is thrown into chaos however when an AI goes rogue and leavings our only really protagonist flung into a void.

Honestly it sounds conviluted, I cant think of a better way to sum it up. So story wise is complicated but visually, remember after all this is a visual medium, 2001 excels. Even now, this film still stands the test of time, it has barely dated and even the subject matter was based over 10 years ago, it all looks and fits perfectly into the time slot.

Kubrick allows this film to be timeless, decades before its time and after, which deserves a medal. Cinematography is majestic, the sets are flawless, effects work is extremely commendable, especailly the zero gravity work.

The score is iconic, used in everything from car adverts to parodies. It created a genre, it still shames most of the efforts committed, there is not much else to be said. Watch it and just experience it, there is nothing else you can do.