433. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Running Time: 160 mins

2001: A Space Odyssey is an American film, where mankind discovers a strange object beneath the Moon’s surface during an expedition, and then sets out on a mission to Jupiter, along with the highly intelligent computer HAL 9000, for further exploration.

This film is a masterpiece. Both artistically and psychologically, this film really gets to the core of how mankind has evolved through the years, and the future wonders, and perils, that are awaiting us as we explore the stars.

It’s been said that this film is just too boring to watch, but I would largely disagree with that. Firstly, if you’re able to look into what this film is talking about throughout, i.e. space: the final frontier, humanity’s incredible evolution, and the life cycle, you can find a really interesting meaning within this film, which makes it a whole lot more interesting to watch.

Also, how can a film that is so beautiful to watch be boring? The visual effects in this movie are mesmerisingly beautiful, and they give you such a sense of wonderment and awe while watching that you can’t take your eyes off the screen.

It’s not just the beauty and awe of this film that is admirable, but also the psychological horror aspects to the story. The battle between the astronauts and HAL 9000 is a very scary one, showing the dangers of technological advancement and mankind’s overwhelming reliance on computers, and also, the film creates a consistently eery atmosphere throughout, namely through its dark representations of space as an eternity.

Having said all of that though, this film is VERY SLOW. I did enjoy following the story, but the pace it moves at is just too slow that it unfortunately becomes a little dull to watch, and I would say that there are just too many establishing shots of space throughout, including a 10 minute long sequence towards the end of the film, which is like looking at a kaleidoscope for that long, and although you try to read into it, it soon becomes irritatingly repetitive to watch.

And yet, that slow-moving pace does create a great deal of tension as the film goes on, along with a certain eeriness and unpredictability, much like the future that it is representing, that it grabs you from start to finish, and because of that, I’ll give this an 8.0.