2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

“The Ultimate Trip”

Science fiction has come a long way from its inception in literature and art, but in 1968, the greatest conversion to film took place in the form of an ultimate trip.

2001: A Space Odyssey is Stanley Kubrick’s epic masterpiece of space and exploration. The film follows a storyline, spanning 18 months, of mankind’s discovery of the origins of the human race and set out on a quest to retrieve that information. The crew of the mission is aided with the state-of-the-art computer technology of the HAL 9000 series, which can mimic the human brain.

The film is broken up into four different sections, all continuing the same story and sticking to a similar narrative.

It is with the advanced technology aiding the astronauts that put forth one of the major themes of the film: the dependence we are having on computers. It’s more of science fiction now than it was back in the 1960s with the rise of technology. Another major theme is the evolution of man. The artifact that is discovered is interpreted to be the key finding out how we got here and how we came to be. It plays a very significant role in the film.

Other significant roles are the different directions that Kubrick contributed. The cinematography of the film was spectacular. The wide-set shots and the narrow circular set of the setting applied to the sense of confinement and claustrophobia.

Also, not to mention the visual effects that basically won this movie over. The dazzling and blinding rays of lights brought alive the trip and the depiction of extraterrestrial life on the planet Jupiter.

Another way that this movie achieved so greatly, I think, is the minimal use of dialogue. What this movie basically consists of are extravagant shots of the space shuttles and the open space accompanied with the equally extravagant orchestra playing over these shots. The minimal use of dialogue adds ambiguity to the film’s themes and eventual climax. It opens up interpretation to the characters’ true thoughts of their actions.

At over two hours long, 2001 didn’t bore me. I watched with my full attention and gave a hundred percent of my mind to it to decipher the silences.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a brilliant masterpiece that marvelously brings alive the themes space exploration, evolution, the dawn of man, and extraterrestrial. I give this film a remarkable and lengthy 5 out of 5.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

“The story begins.”

Many writers reinvent franchises with a fresh new start and change the story completely. They disregard the previous timeframe and events and make their own. While some are disappointing, this example was a surprising one.

X-Men: First Class is the 2011 prequel to the X-Men franchise.

And I say prequel loosely.

The film follows young Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr as they both are exposed to different views on mutants in the world and team up with the CIA to protect the world from the Hellfire Club. The Hellfire Club is a terrorist group run by mutant Nazi Sebastian Shaw, who is attempting to use The Cuban Missile Crisis to start a war between the humans and the mutants.

The film introduced new characters to the franchise such as Havok, Angel Salvadore, Darwin, Banshee, and Azazel, and featured previous popular characters such as Mystique, and Emma Frost, obviously Professor X and Magneto, and a small chuckling cameo of Wolverine.

This film is the perfect movie to watch to kick off your summer. It seriously is an entertaining movie on many levels including the action scenes, the story, the laughs, and other parts. It could qualify as a stand-alone film, but only because it totally disregards events and characters from the previous films. Havok is actually Cyclops’ younger brother, Emma Frost is part of the Hellfire Club in this film but is actually the sister-in-law of Wolverine in his film (which is by far the worst of franchise). It’s actually the first of a proposed trilogy meant to reboot the franchise with dark elements, similar to Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies.

Another thing about the film is the slow start it had. It took its sweet ass time getting to know the characters, although the character development was best we’ve seen in a X-Men movie in a while.

There’s also the fact that it doesn’t necessarily live up to its title. With the subtitle of the film, you’d expect the majority of the film would be them in costumes fighting the Nazis and other battles that would lead up to the climax. But they were only in the costumes for a good one-fourth of the movie, where the action really went down.

X-Men: First Class is definitely an improvement of the past two films and an excellent start to a proposed new franchise. Director Matthew Vaughn did everyone a favor and worked a whole new direction with a fresh new cast and explosive effects. I give this film a 4 out of 5 and you can watch it now in theatres.