W… T… F…

Can somebody please tell me what I just watched? This is easily the second weirdest movie I’ve ever seen. Number 1 is Spirited Away. Seriously, what was up with that movie? But one thing both films have in common is that they’re both art, albeit art that you need to take a seminar to understand.

Plot summary? This is 2001! It doesn’t need no stinking plot summary!

What the… okay, okay. Let’s start with the obvious, this film looks incredible. The sets and the cinematography are absolutely brilliant, and the makeup is very realistic. The film won an oscar for effects, and while this movie was made in a time before CGI, that just makes what you’re seeing onscreen all the more impressive, particularly any sequence involving shifts in gravity. And speaking of gravity, I can see where Alfonso Cuaron got his inspiration from in a lot of the space scenes.

Now personally, I found some of the dialogue scenes to be kind of boring, and there’s a scene early on that really doesn’t have much to do with the plot. But maybe it was important and my inferior intellect can’t understand it. As producer Arthur C. Clarke once said, “If you understand ‘2001’ completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered.” And when it comes to the ending of the film, it definitely succeeds in this regard.

The film is very well written and features a rather unsettling vocal performance by Douglas Rain, it’s not really about the acting or dialogue here. The atmosphere is awe inspiring, and the world building is used to great effect. Even if it does make you scratch your head, Stanley Kubrick has created a film that wail stay with you long after the end credits. Just don’t watch it drunk.

I don’t even know if I can GIVE this a rating. It seems unratable. It’s on an entirely different level than most films. Uh, how about five question marks?

?????

That’s my rating. Deal with it.