I have just spent another two hours of my life giving 2001 - A Space Odyssey another go. I think to review it here is simply not fair. This film was made in 1968 when I was one. Man had not yet stepped on the moon and all our lives had been taken over with a science fiction frenzy. You just needed to look at the cars, the fashions and the optimism at the time. There is no doubt that this film influenced many modern film directors. James Cameron robbed whole sections of score for his Aliens movie, every British child's favourite film maker Gerry Anderson must have based UFO on what he saw in 2001. The wonderful end title score by Barry Gray is so reminiscent. 

So, visionary, yes, technical master, yes...master storyteller I don't think so. His films are dry, clinical and the dialogue is stunted. You get the minimum, no fat. It's like Kubrick made a film for computers to watch. Exactly everything you need to tell the story except soul. A lot of his films are about breakdown, degradation, perhaps renewal but always seem to miss redemption. The complex character  in  every man are reduced to formula and method. 2001 is a stiff unrelenting film with extra starch.

However he has his moments. The opening title of The Shining is beautiful. This flowing long shot was way mapped out to sync with the Torrence Car, is a scene that works very well, but fast forward to the interview with Jack Torrence with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel. The editing is appalling.  It lacks the flow of normal speech and feels frankly odd. I suspect the editor had a brain fade cutting that film. The speech is disjointed and cut, cut, cut went the editor. The director should have had the courage to let his actors tell the story.

Full Metal Jacket is disappointing. It came a decade after movies that told the story much better. I didn't believe the characters, I didn't care about them. Sure it was bloody and cruel but it was dry, sanitised and cold. Michael Chimino told his story of The Deer Hunter with passion and conviction. Some of the scenes are painful, brutal, touching and bittersweet. The actors carried the plot and you believed in them, willed them to come through it. Full Metal jacket has none of that.

A Clockwork Orange is one of the films I like from Kubrick. It deals with violence in a appropriate sledge hammer style. However the violence feels cold and uninvolved, almost Tom & Jerry to have too much of an impact. The French Connection (who won the Oscar that year) is also violent and brutal, but you can't help root for "Popeye" whereas Malcolm McDowell' s  wonderfully sadistic Alex DeLarge is so far removed I didn't really give a hoot.

Is there a pattern emerging here?

I am not even going to mention Barry Lyndon and Spartacus. After Anthony Mann (the original Director) was given his marching orders, I suspect Kubrick was well under the studio influence. Kubrick never had final cut of the film and this is probably why Spartacus does not feel like a Stanley Kubrick movie and probably for that reason I have enjoyed it many times.

I know I am wandering off topic a little but please indulge me. Stanley Kubrick promising director scores movie hits with Paths of Glory and Spartacus. So the studio give him a pot of dosh and he goes off to make 2001 - A Space Odyssey. This is where I believe Kubrick became unstuck. Perhaps he believed the bullshit that people were saying about him.
Some people reach iconic status too soon before their actual ability can catch up. This is realised in a interview with Joseph Gelmis when asked about the meaning of 2001.

"They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded."

Make of that what you will. My view is that 2001 does really work as a film; it's more of a picture frame with moving images, a screensaver with wonderful views. I know it has a following and I respect your view to differ. However this is my Blog and I get the last word.

Movies to me are an experience. They can whisk you away to places far far away, to visit strange new worlds and meet mysterious inhabitants. They can bring you to terms with what it is to be human, the bonds between families and friends, and flood you with emotion and sorrow. Movies can do this when all the elements of film making come together. Whilst I am not qualified to know what elements make a good movie, I believe we can all tell when we are enchanted and time stops (for a couple of hours anyway).

For me this has never occurred watching a Stanley Kubrick movie.

Stanley Kubrick was without doubt a master film maker on every level. A genius of production and execution...but not a master storyteller.