2001: A Space Odyssey

This is a terrible movie. I don't mean in terms of quality, but I simply always have a problem with it. I love Kubrick's films, but "2001: A Space Odyssey" is the only one that just never clicked with me. I have seen it three times already and I still can't tune into it. Visually, this is a perfect masterpiece, especially when you consider the era it was made in. There are tricks that wouldn't look any better even with digital technology nowadays. Unbelievable. However, there is a storytelling style that simply doesn't sit well with me. Every time, I feel like I've been sitting in front of the movie for at least four hours, and yet, not even two have passed. There are scenes that are absolutely mesmerizing, but as a whole, it just didn't reach me. It's a film that you have to watch multiple times to realize how brilliant the individual scenes are and how innovative their interconnection is, but it still doesn't change the fact that the whole thing simply doesn't work. It doesn't want to reach the viewer, and it's as if the viewer can't reach it either. 100% for the details, but I have to give it less for the whole, because if I couldn't digest the film even on the third try, it just won't work. However, visually, it is something absolutely incredible and the impressions can only be compared to "Gravity," although "2001: A Space Odyssey" has a much more complex concept and the visual variability is stunning. (04/11/2014)

A film that gives you the impression that while you were watching it, you managed to have dinner, take several work calls and watch another film at the same time, because, strictly speaking, Space Odyssey has about 15 minutes of story stretched to two and a half hours. But that’d be a big mistake, because you’ll actually have to give the film at lot more time than its duration. This time, Kubrick didn’t disappoint me, maybe because before the screening I thought I would turn the film off because it’d be boring. I still can’t explain how it could entertain me so much, let alone make me feel like watching it again :) After A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket, I didn’t get Kubrick’s reputation of a genius filmmaker, now I do. That said, I can’t imagine how I could persuade someone who cares less than a lot about cinema to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey. (08/10/2009)

I wonder if anybody will understand this without reading the book. Kubrick created something really weird from Clarke’s pure-blooded sci-fi. OK, it starts more or less the same, then it sort of jumps chapters and the ending of the book that I had considered important is somehow missing in this movie. The movie lacks the purpose that is quite well described in the book. The journey through space is presented differently. Instead of Saturn’s moons, we fly toward Jupiter instead. There are lots of differences that annoy me, but lots of things that exceeded my expectations. The black monolith and the nice-guy computer HAL 9000 remained the same. I have more or less arrived at the conclusion that it’s almost impossible to compare them due to certain characteristics that each media has. I think that what bothered me in places was the unnecessary drawn-outness, probably due to Kubrick’s fascination with the emptiness of space. It loses a star for a certain vividness in the first half that is due to the fact that the “future" occasionally comes across like the 1970s, on the other hand the movie is incredibly advanced and well-thought out. This is my purely subjective view of the movie and oldsters probably won’t share my view, but I’m just rather particular about this sort of thing. This is because the movie was years before its time. But this then meant that it set certain standards for the genre, so there you go... hrmph. (07/12/2009)

An extraordinary space ballet, mixed with a psychedelic trip to the galaxy's edges. Why is Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey a great film? Because it resisted the lure of the book and instead of parroting Clark's text, it became a kind of bizarre visual essay on the future, the universe and people. Kubrick's brilliance is also evidenced by the fact that today, when film is taking the path of "perfect imitation," its riveting game of shapes, colors and sounds does not lose any of its concern or suggestiveness. In my opinion, that is why A Space Odyssey does not age, because it is not a copy of a sci-fi original, but a supreme work of art that transcends the boundaries of the sci-fi genre. To today's viewer it may seem lazy, peaceful, anti-dramatic, but its real charm is toiling beneath the surface of the action. Bravo! This work walks in the footsteps of the best tradition of artistic fantasy... (03/30/2004)

A visionary’s life-view expressed through film images and music in a sci-fi environment. The thematic scope is absolute, from the birth of thought and awareness of one’s own personality at the very beginning of humanity to the threat of the dominance of artificial intelligence over advanced civilization in the future. The patience-requiring pace of the film aptly symbolizes the human life span and, in conjunction with the depth and mystery of the universe, also the distant-nature of the answers to our existential questions. Except for the old-fashioned inverse filters in the final fly-overs over the land, it’s an amazingly timeless movie. The picture quality of the restored version shown in cinemas in 2014 is perfect. (04/03/2014)