Steff A (FilmAddykt)

Great great entertaining, funny and kinda disturbing movie. It's very hard to find a movie about heroine that doesn't aim to scare you. For example, when I first watched "Requiem for a Dream" I was so scared that I never tried to watch it again for many years. But in "Trainspotting" this doesn't happen. Well. it still is a shocking movie when drug use and the effects of drug are depicted. The focus of the movie though is placed on Renton and the characters surrounding him. And what an amazing collection of characters that is! The straightedge guy, the bully, the cunt who'll screw you, the guy who always gets in trouble, their parents, their girlfriends and mother superior. To be exact it is an amazing buddy movie! Also, the way that reality is depicted through surealism by Boyle is fantastic and creates some great memorable moments. All in all it's a complete blast of a movie about how the world evolves around a dysfunctional group of people and how they fit in this world. Another movie you must not miss.

A damn impressive movie. Basicaly what we have here is Plato's cave for the 21st century. But ,as a movie, it is much more than. While the movie's philosophical background is nothing new, Orwell used it, Huxley used it, Plato invented it, it is in this movie that it comes into fruition in a great uncompromising way. This movie offers probably the best effects, kung fu fights, gunfights, style in general that sci-fi cinema has seen. This is simply on of the essential movie. A clever science-ficiton movie in 1999. Who would have thought? Sadly even the perfect movies have their drawbacks. Gmhhmhm (clears throat)... KEANU REEVES CAN'T ACT FOR SHIT AND HE NEVER WILL!!! It was a public announcement by FilmAddykt(Steve A) on Flixster. Because we care.

A breathtaking film. A film about human impulses and their concequences. A film about life, death, romance, France, love, smoking, anarchy, cars, beauty, uglyness, women, men. This film is basically a tribute to life through every one of it's aspects. The direction, the editing, the frantic pacing, the dialogues. The two leading characters are the complete opposite of each other. So different, yet they belong together. They live in different worlds but they are destined to collide. The absurd writing and editing deconstruct every aspect of a daily routine. Never before or after a movie was such a perfect match of elements, thematically and technically. Never before the word masterpiece was so precise to define a movie.

This would be my weak attempt to review and interpret this Masterpiece. I really don't know what I can contribute to the analysis of this epic that cuts through the evolution of man and the whole course of humanity. First of all, just to get it out of the way, let me say a few things about the technical aspects of the movie. This movie probably has the best direction and cinematography ever. Kubrick delivers his best work. The visuals of the movie are just so beautiful and effective. Whether it's the dry as a bone depiction of earth at the dawn of time, the very realistic depiction of the moon surface (before we even had photographic or video footage of it!), the sterile clean space station and the spaceship Discovery One or space in its infinite glory these images are the way that Kubrick choses in order to convey every message and emotion this movie offers and most of all the feeling that we are part of something much bigger than ourselves. That being said we should not underestimate the use of music and sound effects in the movie. I cannot imagine how the movie would be if it wasn't for the magnificent melodies of Strauss. In addition dispite the lack of dialogues, Kubrick offers the most accurate and suitable pacing in order keep the viewers senses alert for taking in the movie. The final outcome of all this is a sublime movie, a real audiovisual opus and a carrier of beauty. The beauty of the unexplored, of the infinite, of space. I think I made clear that this is the best movie Kubrick made and definitely the best science fiction movie. And that could have been achieved only through the forementioned characteristics. But the movie also offers a very deep and difficult to conceive philosophical and symbolical ground. Note that this is a review based on my firs and only viewing of the film and I find it impossible for myself to fully understand the movie. Nevertheless I'll try to enlighten you as much as I can. The first symbol that we encounter in the beggining of the movie. the depiction of the dawn of time is the monolith and it remains the most important one as it re-appears throughout the movie. The monolith when first seen by apes is welcomed with certain emotions. Anxiety, fear and a general disorientation. That is exactly the way that the people of the year 2001 interact with it too. Despite the technological and mental expansion of man he still remains a disoriented ape when faced with the simple and dark depiction of his excistence and his inner self. And that's what I believe the symbol of the monolith is. A way for them, a warning if wou may, to understand the base of their excistence, something impossible and that's why, I believe, the origins, use and everything about the monolith, other than its excistence, remains unknown by man. I mentioned before the technological expansion of man. That is another interesting subject in the movie, how depentend we are on the machine and our discoveries in general. The bone of the primitive ape is the spaceship of the future man and they are both destroyed by them. The apes in the first part of the movie start killing each other because some can use tools and some can't. The apes with the tools go against the others not because they are really scared by the rest of them but just because they have evolved just a small bit further and they think that they are something else now. In the same way the future men trust their companions lives to HAL. They too become dependend on their discoveries and that leads to their demise. Ultimately it's very ironic having your own creation turn against you but the movie goes to show the great wil powerl that a man needs to tame his own creations and his own self. As we continue towards the end of the movie we have the comeback of the monolith and a strange trip that the main character goes through in order to end in room where he ages, dies and is finally reborn. This could be interprented as man finding God or even the meaning of life but it is just too hard to fully understand. In my opinion I think that whithin the room we witness, once again the insignificance of the human race compared to the universe and how limited our capabilities are in the end, closed to a little room, captives of our own fragile excistence. Our species just feels so important with it's technology that feels a stronger and stronger need to explore its boundaries. But how is that possible when it can't explore its core? The movie however doesn't dismiss humanity but just goes to show that as long as we have these flaws, we need to come in touch with our basic insticts and understand our fears and how fragile our life is in order to throw the bone away as the monkeys in the beggining did. This is a movie that everyone must see and at least dismiss it. It's very hard to filter the ideas that the movie trys to convey and if you are interested in doing so you need to have a very open mind towards the movie. May God or whatever deity has created this magnificent universe rest Kubricks soul for his cinematic work and especially this movie, a definitive work of art for our time and a priceless heritage for many generations to come.