One of the best science fiction films ever made.

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2011)

2001 A Space Odyssey is one of the greatest works of Stanley Kubrick as well as one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. This film documents a journey of humankind into the unknown of space. In this 1968 film, which was vastly ahead of its time, Kubrick explores human nature, and the frailty and insignificance of humanity compared to the vastness of space.
The film takes place starting at the dawn of humanity. Apes are seemingly given conscious thought and intelligence from a black monolith that mysteriously appears to them. The first thing the apes used their newfound intelligence for was to create weapons to harm their counterparts. This gives us insight into humankind. Kubrick expresses this theme through much of the film.
Kubrick brilliantly uses special effects and stunning cinematography coupled with a classical score to tell his story in this film. The lack of dialogue challenges the viewer to make his own decisions and use his imagination to understand the theme of this film. I personally feel that if there had been more dialogue in this film that the story would have been less interesting and it would have taken focus off the beautiful cinematography and score. A perfect example of the use of score in this film to set the scene would be one of the opening scenes where Dr. Haywood is traveling to the moon to investigate a monolith that was discovered there. The docking scene uses the waltz "Blue Danube" almost perpetuates a feeling of dance between the space vessels as they dock. During the spacewalk scene, Kubrick uses no dialogue just a soundtrack of Poole breathing in his space apparatus. By using this method, you do not need dialogue or narration to express the feeling of tension as Poole is stalked and killed by HAL9000. This also expresses the fact that Poole is alone and defenseless in the vastness of space.
The end of this film is as visually stunning is it is cryptic. After Bowman investigates the giant monolith in the orbit of Jupiter, Bowman is drawn in and experiences several minutes of flashing lights and color. After Bowman is drawn into the monolith, there are several scenes in which he watches himself age, die and then become reborn. The ending of this film leaves much of the theme open for debate and forces us as viewers to come to our own conclusions in regards to the meaning of this film.