One final comment ...

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2000)

One thing I forgot to add in my earlier post is a response to the many reviewers who advise four or five viewings to understand what Kubrick is trying to say. This is an incredibly arrogant comment and shouldn't go unchallenged.
First, as an avid movie-goer, I well understand that repeated viewings of a film will sometimes give different perspectives and meanings. Cool Hand Luke is one such film, Edward Scissorhands another, On the Waterfront, Being There, and many, many others. However, if a director makes his film SO obtuse that it takes more than two viewings to understand it (really, more than one), then the film fails. The point of art is to communicate, not to needlessly play mind games.
Second, I *did* get the message that Kubrick intended on sending, and I still feel the movie was pointless and boring. That's due to some very lackluster directing and below-par acting, especially by Nicole Kidman. Having interminable long shots of empty rooms and hallways may be a hallmark of Kubrick's (I'd disagree with that), but if so, it doesn't work. It drags the pace of the film down to a crawl. So does Kubrick's idea of delivering 'important' dialogue: stretching the words out needlessly in a monotone. Small wonder this film came in at 2:45. Watch The Green Mile, another multi-layered movie, and see how fast the three-hour runtime passes.

I understand that some reviewers have an emotional attachment to Kubrick, and I also really enjoyed other of his works. Take another viewing of Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange. Sure, you can get different subtleties and symbolisms on multiple viewings, but the main themes are communicated clearly on the first viewing. Both movies also were well-paced, included excellent acting, and had much more interesting (and real) conflicts, taking real chances with the material, not the half-baked and phony issues which form the crux of this movie. In this case, sadly, the Emperor has no clothes.