Unbelievable; visionary

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 1999)

I have seen 2001 all of twice now, but I will never cease to marvel at what an astounding accomplishment it is. I have never seen a film with such amazing vision. Everything in it seems so incredibly well and completely though out. Kubrick is, no question, the bravest director I've ever seen. What other director would have an overture, intermission, entre'acte and exit music now? The space sequences are truly silent, whereas Armageddon, for example, fills it with useless noise. It gives the real feeling of a void, a vacuum, of emptiness and infinity itself. 2001 is a visual opera. It tests the limits of cinema and the very imagination. I have never seen another movie that required real existential discussion afterwards. This movie, though it is over 30 years old, has the greatest special effects of any ever. The ending sequence may be the greatest 20 minutes ever captured on film. The title is perfect: "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite." How it was done is beyond me. How Kubrick could have ever even imagined it is totally beyond me. I would say right now that this is the greatest film I have ever seen. It is a masterpiece. The film world is immeasurably poorer without Kubrick, but it owes him an eternal debt.