The Greatest Sci-Fi of all Time

Rating: 10/10 (7 July 2008)

2001: A Space Odyssey is polarizing; if you love it, you rank it in your top five movies ever, maybe higher. If you hate it, you really don't like it. It is the Ulysses or the "Les demoiselles d'Avignon" of the cinematic world: confusing, epic, bizarre, but masterful. Kubrick (God rest his soul) created a powerfully symbolic film, which is part of the reason why some people don't like it very much. None of it is clear cut, but everything you see is there for a reason. Kubrick makes you work through this movie. Whether it's realizing that "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is the theme music for the next great moment in human evolutionary history, pinpointing the exact moment where we see HAL's first emotional response (or do we?), or even something as simple as Frank's frightening death that all too clearly backs up the statement, "In space, no one can hear you scream," you have to think. And that is part of the glory of 2001. Like all great movies make you do, you have to consider and assess and analyze to garner something like understanding.