2001: A Space Odyssey

Notoriously baffling yet oddly compelling, 2001: A Space Odyssey essentially follows two astronauts (Keir Dullea’s Dave Bowman and Gary Lockwood’s Frank Poole) as they embark on a quest into the farthest reaches of the known galaxy. Director Stanley Kubrick, working from a script cowritten with Arthur C. Clarke, has infused 2001: A Space Odyssey with a continuously striking visual sensibility that remains a highlight from start to finish, as the filmmaker suffuses the proceedings with one absolutely astonishing set-piece after another – with, for example, Dave’s gravity-defying jog within the spacecraft’s interior nothing less than jaw-dropping in its impact. Likewise, Kubrick does a superb job of wringing suspense out of a few key sequences – with the best and most cogent instance of this certainly Dave’s revenge-fuelled attempts at shutting down the ship’s psychotic computer, HAL. It’s just as clear, however, that Kubrick’s decidedly avant-garde approach often prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to either the material or the characters, and it subsequently goes without saying that the movie, which is never boring, certainly, generally does struggle to justify its 146 minute running time (ie there are too many stretches here that just go on and on and on). The hands-off atmosphere is ultimately compounded by a climactic stretch that’s designed to raise more questions than it answers, which does, in the end, confirm 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s place as a singular cinematic achievement that one admires more than one completely enjoys.

*** out of ****