Best film ever made - fact.

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2002)

I guess there's not a lot I can say about this film that hasn't already been written, but I feel almost compelled to write something since it's the greatest film ever made (this is not an opinion, it's a fact).
Everything about the film is perfect, from the music played over the opening shot (actually, not really a shot, it's just a blank screen) to the oft-discussed final image of the film. It's sort of ambitious to start a film with the title card "The Dawn of Man" and have an ending concerned with the future of the human race, but Kubrick was never a person to let practical limits deter him. The film is immaculately crafted all the way through, especially is the visual and aural sense, and the special effects are nothing short of spectacular. They give the film the sense of scale that it really needed to succeed where it is trying to. The effects are particularly impressive when you consider that it was nearly 35 years ago that they were shot, and the "stargate" sequence is better than anything I've seen created by CGI to date. And, of course, there's the music... I couldn't say for sure, but I reckon that this was the first time that an score made entirely of pieces of classical music was used in such a large film, and it's *certainly* the first (and last) time it has been used so well. Now many films take that approach simply to appear more intelligent than they actually are.
I feel sorry for people who have become so weaned on narrative-driven movies nowadays that they dismiss the movie out of hand as being slow and boring. 2001: A Space Odyssey is unparalleled in cinema as a spectacle, and as an experience.