If only one film makes it off this planet, it should be 2001.

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2012)

If the Earth was about to blow up and I could choose only 1 film to survive us, it would definitely be this. What's funny is "2001" isn't even my favourite movie. But I believe it tells the story of humankind better than anything else I've ever seen on the big screen. Essentially it asks the age old question "what is the meaning of life?", and for my money, it provides a very satisfying answer.
What makes it such a phenomenal work of art is that it is able to address some of the most divisive, incompatible human attitudes (in particular, religion) and present us with a model that we ALL can accept. Judeo-Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Scientologists, Fundamentalists, Existentialists, Atheists and even Satanists can find truth in this film because it applies no labels. Like the mysterious yet commanding "black box" that appears in the film, it remains exactly that: a sealed black box which can be anything we choose to see.
The black box may represent God. Or it may represent science. Or it may represent history. Or it may represent individuality. Make up your own mind, and you will learn a little something of yourself. Really, this movie is like a puzzle with infinite solutions, designed to teach us about ourselves by what we see in it. It's truly interactive. No other film has ever made me feel this way.
The plot is almost irrelevant, so I won't bother summarizing. What you should pay attention to are the themes and questions the movie addresses.
1) Are we alone in the universe? 2) Is there a point to life? 3) Are we heading in the right direction?
By the time the movie ends, you should have an answer to all three, and yet all our answers will be different.
SO WHAT THE HECK IS THE MOVIE ABOUT? OK, since you've read this far, I'll give you an idea. The movie is about evolution. Not just your Darwinian natural selection stuff, but a compelling proposal that evolution was (or continues to be?) guided by some extraordinary force. If you like, this is the marriage of God & science that we've all been waiting for. Or if you like, it's a testament to pure science. Or pure God. Like I said, Kubrick allows for every possibility. And I have to hand it to him for remaining so tight-lipped that nobody ever knew what his personal feelings were on the matter.
The film starts in prehistoric times with a tribe of moribund ape-like creatures on the edge of either extinction or excellence. Then we jump ahead a million years or so to find humans in a similar state of stagnation yet on the edge of another fantastic evolutionary step forward. Finally we jump forward to catch a glimpse of what evolution may have in store for us in the not-too-distant future. If it sounds like a documentary, I suppose it almost is, except without Marlon Perkins talking over it. We are expected to fill in the details ourselves, and that is the beauty of what this film does. It takes a purely objective approach and manages to lead us to our own satisfying conclusions.
A word of caution. I don't think you're supposed to "get" this film on one viewing. I certainly didn't, and I've never met anyone who did. Even Roger Ebert (who ranks this as the greatest film of all time) was initially lukewarm about it when it premiered in '68. So if you feel like you just got cheated, or if you have no idea what everyone's raving about, please be patient and give it some time to sink in. I saw this movie when I was 16 and loved the middle part but hated the ending. Decades later I saw it again and suddenly understood it better. But I confess there's still a lot I haven't realized. I suppose as I get older and hopefully wiser I'll continue to interpret new ideas. And that's why this is the greatest movie of all time. It is about evolution, and moreso it EVOLVES WITH US.