A movie in three parts...

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2005)

I really like the way that the great director (the Late) Stanley Kubrick gives us several movies in one. He did it with 'Full Metal Jacket' and has also done it with '2001'...
Part 1 of '2001' is The Dawn of Man and the antics of ape-men and the discovery of a black rectangular monolith are the focus here. At the end of Part 1 a bone is sent up flying up into the air and it comes down as a spaceship!
Part 2 is about the discovery of a second monolith on the moon, eons later, and the subsequent Jupiter mission. This is the main part of the movie and HAL the homicidal super-computer features in this section. And there is one famous line here which sends a shiver up the spine: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
Part 3 is Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, which some people have said is close to an LSD trip. Certainly it's beyond words.
And how do the three parts fit together? There is no one definitive answer to this, but the monoliths are the common thread, and it could be suggested that they somehow shape the course of human evolution.
It should be noted the the so-called sequel to 2001, 2010, is not a Stanley Kubrick film, and is unlike one in many ways. I've heard it said that if you liked 2001, you won't like 2010, and vice-versa.