2001: A Space Odyssey

It’s an overpowering experience, awe-inspiringly photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth, groundbreakingly enhanced by Douglas Trumbull.

The final passages are the most exultant in their taking us beyond ourselves into a wide-eyed state of untarnished possibilities; entirely without words, the film reminds us that, despite how far we’ve come, the real odyssey has only just begun.

Beloved for many different reasons, including its scrupulous scientific accuracy, its vast reach from "The Dawn of Man" to the next stage of human evolution, its unrivaled integration of musical and visual composition, its daring paucity of dialogue and washes of silence, its astonishingly creative psychedelic sequence and its still-gorgeous pre-digital special effects.

Its faults - sketchy narrative, overblown abstraction - are counterbalanced by its gripping engagement between man and machine, and its rhapsodic wonder at heaven and earth and the infinite beyond.

This is the way this ground-breaking monument was meant to be seen: in mind-boggling 70mm.

The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail, that its is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring.

A crackpot Looney Tune, pretentious, abysmally slow, amateurishly acted and, above all, wrong.

There's really not that much to say that has not already been said about this movie. It's one of the best films ever made, and given the fact that this was released a year before the moon landing, and was made/filmed prior to humanity having our first full-disk pictures of the Earth from a geostationary orbit is absolutely insane to think about. This is genuinely one of the best movies ever made.

2001: A Space Odyssey is certainly an impressive feat of visual effects, especially for a film that came out in 1968. The way the earth and spaceships are shown throughout the film does a great job at captivating the eye. The way the movie portrays humanity, and its evolution from apes to astronauts is profound and the themes of evolution were captured quite well, even with the obscure ending scene.However, the overall film and its plot left me unsatisfied. The storyline in-between the narrative of apes discovering the monolith and the HAL storyline made the pacing of the movie screech to a halt. It felt a way for the movie to showcase its impressive visual effects rather than a way to contribute the themes and narrative. The pacing of this movie is weird, and scenes will drag on and on. In some cases, it makes sense, the usage of this in the storyline with HAL instills a hefty amount of dread. This makes the mind wander about what will happen next, with an AI as smart as HAL it’s terrifying to think what the rouge AI is planning. However, this storyline only makes up like half of the movies run time and for the rest of the film it just makes scenes go on for way longer than needed.I know 2001: A Space Odyssey is considered a classic and a groundbreaking achievement in filmmaking. However, unless you're someone interested in the history of film, then this movie doesn’t really have a lot to offer other than iconic scenes and stellar effects that still hold up to this day. Maybe that’s what people enjoy in a film, but personally I need a film with more substance, character, and narrative built into it. The overall story of 2001: A Space Odyssey is aggravatingly slow paced and weirdly structured. It’s a hard watch that feels more like a technical showcase than a film.

The heavy machinery of a silent abyss: A 5.0-star "sensational" surge of ultimate human distrust.2008 (5.0)I watched "The Chaser" in the theater in 2008, and it remains the most visceral "revelation" of my cinematic journey, a definitive 5.0-star pillar that **** the fourth wall of my faith in humanity. This high-tension masterpiece provided a "raw" and "vivid" descent into a world where the narrative rhythm was dictated by "pathetic" incompetence and "sensational" cruelty. Unlike the "stagnant" failures of the era, this film offered a "chewy" and sophisticated exploration of "human distrust," leaving me in a state of absolute "hororong" as the rhythm of the hammer met the silence of the city. Seeing the "vivid" vulnerability of the victims and the high-tension desperation of an ex-cop provided an emotional payoff that left a permanent, "raw" scar on my soul. The 95% preservation of my memory is dominated by the rhythmic, high-tension chase through the alleys and the "raw" frustration of a system that fails to protect, creating a "sensational" atmosphere of dread. Unlike the "1.0-star traumas" of my record, "The Chaser" possessed a rebellious and "vivid" soul that forced me to confront the "raw" reality of evil and the "pathetic" nature of bureaucracy. It stands as a powerful 5.0-star testament to the "raw" power of Korean noir—a "sensational" encounter with the dark side of the human condition that remains the ultimate benchmark for my "human distrust" archive.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Probably out of all the well known mainstream films this is the slowest, it's also very cryptic and the final "star child" sequence is excruciatingly boring, torture to sit through. It has one redeeming factor HAL 9000, who is a great villain and if this movie had of had an easier to follow plot (or any plot at all) then maybe it could have utilised him to his full potential, the voice of HAL is just perfect, it has a real smug condescending sense of superiority to it and he has a great look, that red eye. This movie seems to be more appreciated for it's effects than it's plot (if it even has a plot) which is fine if people enjoy it good for them but personally I am after something different, I want a great story in my films not a great sleeping pill. 3 out of 10 for HAL and one scene involving him in particular.