As a tribute Arthur C. Clarke who passed away today at the age of 90 I have decided to review one of my all time favorite movies, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
First of all, it needs to be said that 2001 is not a movie for the casual movie-goer. It is a heavy, slow but beautiful movie.
The story is also difficult to explain since even the main narrative does not begin until what feels like half-way through. But then again it's not supposed to be simple. Arthur C. Clarke once said, "If you understand 2001 completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered." I think it's safe to say that they succeeded marvelously.
The movie is gloriously slow, there are around 88 dialogue-free minutes in amovie which is 141 minutes long. But the beautiful imagery coupled with the expertly chosen music could last hours and we still wouldn't get bored.
As annoying as this may sound, this is a theme movie. The themes are much more important than the story which will generally put most people off. Some of the themes are human destruction, artificial intelligence, innocence and lack thereof and the beauty is discovering new ones each and every time.
This movie also creates the classic character of HAL, the seemingly innocent computer on board the spacecraft. As monotone as they came, you will begin to care for the robot even as...*ahem*...lets not spoil it.
A spectacular looking and sounding movie that strikes some powerful cords from two masters of their craft, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Score: 5 blinking red lights (out of 5)
A rare ramble of rhetoric:
"All right, HAL; I'll go in through the emergency airlock."
"Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult."
"HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!"
"Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick wrote it in about 58 days
Stanley Kubrick made it beautiful on screen
Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood ran rings upside down
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