Rating: 
Summary: 2001's a great year already
Review: "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a movie that can be sometimes difficult to put into words. I think the reason is mostly because it's a movie that speaks for itself. But, I'm glad to see a movie that remains mostly ambiguious, letting the audience think of their own solutions and wonder what the film is trying to say.Two astronauts, Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) are sent on a deep-space mission to Jupiter for a reason that they do not know. The ship's onboard computer, which helps them on their journey, is HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain), who begins to act strangely and starts seriously malfunctioning. I can't stress enough how great of a job that the film does in challenging your mind. It starts off with apes in prehistoric Africa learning to survive and ends with mankind evolving beyond his physical means in one of the most beautiful and heavily debated endings in motion picture history. It took several years for director Stanley Kubrick to fully realize this film which, not only paved the way for smarter, deeper films, but showed us that special effects can be convincing and important to the story. The effort and time putting into making this film what it was is to be truly commended. This is a masterpiece in every sense of the word.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyment at last: Trip to eternity
Review: When I first purchased this movie, I had trouble trying to hear it. I am hard of hearing so I have to read lips. After viewing my original opy of 2001 for only 45 minutes, I stopped watching it. I took a chance with Amazon and found that there were close-captioned copies available. Now that I have a close-captioned copy, I was able to understand every word with it instead of turning up the volume. Still, the music of Also Sprach Zaranthrusta is powerfully driven. I really do wonder where in the world we would be right now if we had computers like the HAL-9000 controlling our homes without Big Brother giving it a secret order, like what I saw when HAL first stated the problem with the AE-35 antenna. The movie was so realistic unlike most grade-B sci-fi films now and then, except for Star Wars. The monolith can have a very astronomical effect on anyone trying to think what it is, why it is there, and how it was created. That's our Big Brother.
Rating:
Summary: The road to nowhere
Review: I have read a thousand reviews of this work, and the majority of them miss the point. "2001" is, to be sure, a visual and aural banquet, but we should strive to put aside the magnificent special effects and the hypnotic soundtrack. At the risk of disorienting a worldwide community of SF buffs, it must be said that this is not a science fiction movie. It is just a movie about us. Let's calm down and try to discern something of the true essence of Kubrick's beautiful pictorial essay. A dry, stripped bone becomes the first murder weapon in the paws of an early hominid. It is also, of course, the first tool. Pain, and development. Rejoicing, our ancestor hurls the bone into the air. It soars and then falls, tumbling. We progress four million years as the rotating bone blends smoothly into the image of a spacecraft orbiting our planet. Mankind's technological and cultural advances are astounding. But how far have we really come, what prices have we paid, and where are we all headed? Kubrick signals his intent when we see our first example of modern man, aboard the spacecraft. The man is asleep. He is detached, and indifferent. What is at the end of our journey? A featureless and monolithic slab serves as punctuation in Kubrick's essay. It is not God, nor is it an alien, and nor is it an alien artifact. It is just a period placed by Kubrick at the ends of four chapters. At each fleeting apparition, we witness an ostensibly progressive transition, typically accompanied by pain. Pain, and development. In the world of 2001, the distracted energies expended upon increasingly complex technology have drained our ever-shallow pool of humanity into the very machines we have made. We have not come very far, even as the essay persistently takes us further in space, away from the earthly cradle. Dr. Heywood Floyd, modern man's representative, caresses the monolith on the lunar surface with a bewilderment reminiscent of that displayed by the primitive hominids on earth four million years earlier. The culmination of all our efforts is HAL, a sentient and talkative computer aboard a (bone-shaped) spaceship en route to the planet Jupiter. HAL has not one strand of our DNA in his circuits, yet he is the most human of all the characters inhabiting the landscape of 2001. During a long and transfixing sequence in which his CPU is slowly disabled by vacuous astronaut David Bowman, HAL gently declares "I can feel it...I can feel it", over and over again. At this point in the story we face the prospect of a world in which humanity (or, at least, human-ness) has been extinguished, ironically in HAL's red and womb-like CPU chamber. The monolith appears and completes another chapter. Watch carefully during the wordless final reel of this unique and superb movie. The conclusion is deliberately vague, and purposely and endlessly fluid. Perhaps we finish right where we started, and begin again. It's up to you. Do not look to Clarke's book for explanation. The novel was written during and after the making of the film and, as told by Clarke, the movie is 90% Kubrick and 10% Clarke, and vice versa for the book. By its nature, there is no definitive explanation of the ending to the movie. For a very long double bill, I would recommend pairing the film with Tarkovsky's mesmerizing "Solaris" (1971). I would not recommend "2010" by Hyams (1984), which is a literal, weak and wooden-headed attempt to extend Kubrick's work. Why meddle with perfection?
Rating: 
Summary: Very boring!
Review: I personally feel that although the storyline does have potential, in my opinion, it never delivers. I found that the first hour was a complete bore because it lacked any storyline. I think Kubrick payed too much attention to effects and not enough to the plot. While I usually enjoy effects, especially in sci-fi movies, this one played too much on it. Once Hal came into the picture, I found that made all the difference. There are even some comedic parts. Overall, though, I really didn't enjoy this movie as a result of it being way too long with no hope for an ending anytime soon.
Rating:
Summary: Dave & H.A.L's Excellent Adventure
Review: Awe inspiring. I realize that some members of the A.D.D. generation may not have the required attention span to view this movie, but for everyone else it's a religious experience. It starts with a major change in the human species' thought. The combination of silence and music is an ingenious way of pulling the viewer into a participatory role with the film, so that you really feel like jumping up and down with the ape when s/he discovers the use of the bone. The same emotional experience is generated in 2001 with the discovery of the monolith on the moon. What Dave discovers that once again causes an eclipse in human thought is not as clear to me, but I would definitely say this time the discovery will not lead so much to an advancement for the species on the outside in a material way as much as it will lead to an advancement inside in a spiritual way. My guess is that Dave discovers/rediscovers something having to do with the innocence of humanity. Perhaps, considering the symbolism of the moon, it's not so much about the discovery of an idea at the end as the discovery of an emotion? This movie is a religious work of art. Skip church some Sunday and rent the movie instead.
Rating:
Summary: A great film betrayed by shoddy encoding
Review: This is one of the first titles I ever wanted to own on DVD. Kubrik's use of the Cinemascope framing makes this film unwatchable in a pan-and-scan format. Unfortunately, due to what has got to be the worst digital encoding I have ever seen, this DVD is repulsive. This film is all about subtelty. From the quiet strains of Strauss' Blue Danube, to the sweeping expanse of the starfield which dominates the frame in the second and third acts of this masterpiece, to the fact that not one line of dialogue is uttered until over 20 minutes into the film, this is truly an experience to be savoured. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to be swept up in this edition when constantly distracted by encoding artifacts and terible qunatization. The starfields are comprised almost entirely of blotchy pixelization and the scene fade-ins and outs are as smooth as downshifting a VW microbus. The picture is horribly out of focus around the perimiter (due to poor handling of the CinemaScope), and the color and contrast is imprecise and sloppy. In short, this edition looks bad. Save your money and wait until criterion releases their edition.
Rating: 
Summary: watch out for faulty older discs
Review: Considering that the movie was made over thirty years ago, I think the image quality is still quite good -- contrary to a few reviewers who seem to compare it to movies made today with state of the art equipment. The only problem that some may experience is that some of the earlier DVD release of this movie (i.e. the one in the black case) has problems reading the second layer of the dual layered disc. Be sure to purchase the disc re-released with the white coloured case.
Rating:
Summary: my God, it's full of stars
Review: When I was 8 years old, my dad took me to see this film in a theatre. My life has forever been changed. The questions it asked led to me becoming an English major and writer, the music has influenced my love of classical music. And the film inspired me to see other Kubrick films;Barry Lyndon, Shining, Paths of Glory. Too bad Eyes Wide Shut was so bad.
Rating:
Summary: Not for the Star Wars crowd
Review: This really is the first (and only) intellectual sci fi film ever made. If you like slam bang bam blow em up sci fi, skip this movie. If you want to see a quality, intelligent sci film then check it out. The fact that it requires multiple viewings to figure it out means a good return on your 20 dollar investment! Also, I think most would agree that the special effects still look just as good as anything out there today, pretty impressive considering that this film is over 30 years old! Probably the most creative and intellignent movie ever made, in any genre.
Rating: 
Summary: H.A.L. would be proud
Review: Having seen this film countless times on screen and video, I can safely say that this is by far as good as it gets. The picture quality is outstanding in terms of both clarity and color reproduction. In fact, it almost appears that in some cases there has been some color enhancement, especially in the first chapter, "The Dawn of Man". The sound is good, but could be better. All in all, this is a very fine disc.
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