The granddaddy of modern science fiction movies

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2001)

Every director who specializes in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, from George Lucas to Steven Spielberg to James Cameron, has acknowledged the influence of this epic 1968 Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C. Clarke collaboration. And it's very easy to see why. It remains very daring, very probing, very mysterious, and, for many people even today, enormously enigmatic.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY began life as a modest attempt by Kubrick and Clarke to make the "proverbial good science fiction film." As we all know, it involved into something more. Its lengthy metaphysical exploration of the forces that shape Mankind's destiny evolved into a $12 million enterprise that, once released in March 1968, set off a firestorm of controversy among critics and audiences. But young audiences took to this film in such droves that it quickly became a cult classic. Kubrick's use of classical music pieces for "2001", including the "Dawn" sequence of Richard Strauss' tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra", became equally legendary.
Combining monoliths, malfunctioning computers, fears of technology dehumanizing people, and a sequence that, for my money, remains THE ultimate cinematic special effects display (the Stargate), "2001" is groundbreaking cinema at its most earth-shattering. Sixteen years later, it would be followed by "2010", a sequel that is a far better movie than its detractors would have you believe.