As a person who strongly disliked "2001 A Space Odyssey", this film, to me, DEFINITELY redeems Kubrick as a director!

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2013)

I am one of the few people on the planet of the Earth to absolutely hate '2001 A Space Odyssey' not because of action but because of its horrendous pacing issues and terrible dialogue and characters. Despite absolutely loving the Shining, I thought it would never be possible that Kubrick's name can ever be redeemed from another film but boy, I was WRONG!
'A Clockwork Orange' is a tale about a young criminal named Alex who, after being arrested for murder and rape is sent to a 14 year sentence at jail. During this time, he learns of a new treatment process that can ensure that criminals can become much better people and never have to go to jail. It is this very treatment that changes the life of a vile young criminal,or does it really?
The story to A Clockwork Orange is very beautiful and the characters in the movie really make the movie work all the better. We have an 18 year old Malcolm McDowell playing Alex. Let me start off by saying that he is absolutely brilliant in this movie as young Alex. He completely steals it with his performance and makes the story feel all the more realistic and powerful.
The rest of the characters aren't as big a focus as Andy by any means but we have his gang. It was interesting to see what their future became when Alex was arrested. That was great. Other characters such as the old man were easy to connect with. Now, there is one thing in this movie that feels a lot like '2001: A Space Odyssey' and that is the time it takes to really get into the story. This could so easily have become terrible for me to watch but 3 years later, Kubrick realized that if you were to make a movie that takes over 1 hour to get going that you would need to fully immerse with the characters, the story and have interesting dialogue and great acting and not just superb visual effects. Kubrick masters this in this movie.
Despite the long time it takes for the main story to get going, Kubrick easily distinguishes it with 2001 A Space Odyssey by providing so much depth to our main character Alex. We see him commit many terrible crimes such as rape and murder that we completely hate him as a person and wish him to die and suffer. In the first hour, Kubrick's intentions were clear; that is to make us hate Alex.
The next hour mainly focuses on the treatment and the aftermath. Now, the story isn't something so huge and grand like The Godfather or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or any other immense franchise. Its a short film that is made longer to ensure we fully sympathize with Alex and Kubrick ensures we sympathize with him by the end of the movie. During the treatment we begin to feel for Alex as he goes through the torture realizing that his committed crimes were wrong. As he heads back home, the story really focuses on the good side of Alex making him a much more sympathetic character.
Now the story is just brilliantly told and adapted; there is no issue with that whatsoever. The character of Alex becomes such a likable character by the end of this movie that you simply cannot believe it. To me, the thing that made me love the movie all the more and really give this a TEN is John Williams' fantastic musical score to this movie. Its fair to see that Williams is the best at musical scores. His music is so powerful in the movie and adds such a creepy tone to it.
'A Clockwork Orange' in my opinion, after some heavy thinking, is my favorite Kubrick movie, in surpassing one of my all time top 20 movies, 'The Shining'. Its simple; the character of Alex is more powerful than Jack Torrence. The story told is more emotional and moving making us as an audience connect with him more. The music itself is better here than in the Shining all the more making A Clockwork Orange stand out as the clear victor!