2001: A Space Odyssey

#75!



Data
Title: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Year: 1968
Length: 141 minutes
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Douglas Rain
Music: classical music
Distinctions: Oscar for Best Visual Effects; Oscar nominations for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration; currently #75 on IMDb's Top 250




My reaction
Synopsis: there are mysterious space rectangles, being all mysterious
How I saw it: on video many times, most recently (rented from Netflix) yesterday
Concept: Great. I am a sucker for classic sci-fi.
Story: Bad. It should be a sign, when they interrupt the main story with an hour-long Completely Different Story and the audience couldn't care less, that maybe the story is lacking something. It doesn't help that absolutely nothing (of the main story) is resolved or explained at any point. The HAL part is great, though.
Characters: Good. HAL is the only real character in the movie, but he's good enough to make up for everyone else.
Dialog: Good. What's there is great. And, in general, the long absences of dialog are great, too. But not having any dialog during Mind-F*** Theater (aka the last 20 minutes of the movie) is extremely frustrating.
Pacing: Bad. I can totally get behind how slow this movie is. It's a beautiful kind of slowness. For about 20 minutes. Then I start wanting to throw things at the screen.
Cinematography: Great.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good.
Music: Great.
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great). It's very flawed, but what's good is too good to say it's anything less than a great movie.
Objective Rating: 3.1/4 (Very good).