2001: A Space Odyssey {Movie Review}

"An epic drama of adventure and exploration" says the movie poster.

NOT.

Made in 1968 this movie is hailed for its stunning effects and groundbreaking outer space sequences - a true classic. Don't let that dupe you into seeing the movie. If you were to look in the dictionary beside "pointless," "lame," and "waste of time" this movie should be pictured. For the time, yes the features and colors and sequences were quite amazing, now, in 2007, it is nothing extra-ordinary at all. The almost 2 1/2 hour movie could be effectively done in 1/2 hr to a full hour. After watching the movie I was left scratching my head going "I'm so confused."

Question: "What do Brighty of the Grand Canyon and Napoleon Dynamite have in common?" They are both more interesting than this movie (and I didn't find either particularly compelling). The book Brighty is very good - the movie plods along as slow as a donkey. Dynamite at least has cheesy humor. 2001 can't even offer that. I never thought I would say this, but I would rather watch Napoleon Dynamite again than this movie ... in addition to the "humor" it also is about an hour shorter in length. The only good thing that I see coming out of this movie (besides the then stunning effects) was inspiration for space vehicles for George Lucas' Star Wars. It is apparent he was influenced by this movie. I think that also might be why, 9 years later, Star Wars was a sleeper hit. Not only did it have stunning effects (!) it also had a plot, and it was interesting.

I'm told that 2001 was made from a book. The book must not be very thick if they accurately interpreted it. It must be more interesting than the movie though, and hopefully it will help clarify what I saw. I will probably check it out of library sometime. Does anyone know if the book is more interesting than the movie?

SPOILERS (if that can be said for this movie):
Essentially this movie starts at the "Dawn of Man" and shows a black monolith which (I guess) helped the apes evolve. In 1999 a black monolith is discovered on the moon - its origins are Jupiter. In 2001 a team ventures out to Jupiter to find out more about the mysterious monolith. On the way the infallible computer, HAL, messes up, kills people, and must be shut down (this has nothing to do with the main plot, however). Eventually only one guy is left who makes it to Jupiter and finds himself in a strange room where he grows old, is visited by the monolith and transformed into a giant embryo. The embryo is next seen as large as the earth gazing at earth - I presume this is supposed to be the next evolutionary step. Sounds pretty interesting, right? Basically this is not expanded on and I virtually just gave you the script. Don't waste your time watching this movie. To view other plot summaries go here - I'm telling you, it's the whole movie.

Do I have to give this movie stars?

Negative 3 out of Positive 5

It's that boring.

PS - by today's standards, the movie would have at least a PG rating.

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