2001 : A Space Odyssey

Year of release : 1968

 

Run time : 2h29min

 

Genre : Sci Fi / Space Opera

 

Cast : Keir Dullea

 

Director : Stanley Kubrick

 

 

The movie was written by Stanley Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke, and was inspired by Arthur Clarke's 1951 short story " The Sentinel" and other Arthur C. Clarke short stories.

 

The movie starts with the chapter 'The dawn of man', with monkeys in what seems to be the American desert. This part annoyed me,as the actors,who were acting like monkeys kept on screaming and screeching.

It had beautiful landscapes,though,and colors.

The chapter closes with the monolith appearing among the monkeys.

 

Once with the Jupiter Mission,we are in the future of humanity,when advanced technology took them to the stars.

They discovered a monolith on the moon,and they send a crew to Jupiter.

 

The last chapter, 'Jupiter and beyond the infinite' ,sees the astronauts interacting with the space ship's AI,which,fearing its own existence,decides to kill the astronauts.

 

I personally didn't like this movie. The first time I watched it,a few years ago, I hated it.

 

The first 3 minutes of the movie is just unsettling music on black screen. I kept on imagining what it must have been like in theatres,in complete darkness for so long!

This unsettling music,reminiscing of horror/possession movies, appears whenever the monolith is on screen,and goes on forever! The first time was Ok ,but after,the music really bothered me!

 

There's no dialogue for the first 30 minutes of the movie,just screeching and screaming.

The scenes are too long and drag on,although nothing happens.

 

It's nice to see how people thought the future will be like,like for example, the year 2001, when they thought we'll have space missions,when in fact we never left the earth(NASA admitted they don't have the technology)!

 

They refer to the phone as a telephone,thing which struck me,because, I think in 2001, we didn't call it telephone for quite some time.

Speaking of telephone, the monolith looked like our today's phones.

 

At 1 hour 27 minutes there's a 2 minutes Intermission.

In case you're wondering about the ending,Kubrick said the astronaut was "taken by godlike entities;creatures of pure energy and intelligence",as this is what the flashy colors and hallucinations are supposed to represent.

 

The soundtrack was great,the only problem was,it kept on playing the same long songs over and over again!The first time was cool,after,just annoying.

 

The set design and the costumes were great.

 

The visual affects were amazing,they are better than the ones today! Everything looks so real! In certain scenes,the planets look the way the earth looked on the moon landing, Kubrick giving another nod to those believing he directed the moon landing.

 

One good thing about the movie is, it looks better than the movies made today,it looks like a contemporary movie.

 

The movie is streaming on Max,Max Amazon Channel, and is for rent / sale on Amazon Video, Apple Tv, DirecTv, Google Play, RedBox, Vudu, YouTube.

 

Rating : Could have been a contender !