First impressions confirmed, sadly.

Rating: 2/10 (11 July 2017)

I first watched this film "2001 : A Space Odyssey", not long after it was released; I was then a callow youth, not much more than 16. I'd read the novel and was eager to watch the film - sadly, I found it a huge disappointment.
Now I've watched it again, nearly 50 years later and, supposedly, much older and wiser. Was I wrong to find nothing of value at first sight ? Was my youthful disappointment just down to inexperience and lack of understanding ? Well, second time around was little different to the first. While admitting that the film has some striking and very clever, for the time, visual effects, and some beautiful balletic scenes, as cinematic entertainment it's about as interesting and exciting as watching granny cut her toenails.
The story line is poorly set down and if I hadn't read the book I'd have struggled to understand what was going on. There is very little in the way of acting, dialogue or action and parts of the film are taken up with long drawn out scenes accompanied by annoying 'music' which is more like the sound of screeching banshees. At points in the film there is a horrible and prolonged 'hiss' that has no discernible cause or reason for existence. Some have claimed that those who find the film of little value have missed the point and have not understood that the slow pace and odd noises are all about 'realism'; what poppycock. There is very little that is realistic about anything that happens or is heard.
Things actually happen for no obvious reason. Why does the action suddenly shift from the moon to a spaceship on its way to Jupiter (in the book, the destination is actually Saturn) ? Why does HAL, the menacing ship's computer, start questioning the ship's mission and turn bad ? How does Dave Bowman get drawn into his 'magical mystery tour' and where does it take him to ? What is the meaning of the ending ? For reasons which I can't fathom, this film has gone down in history as 'one of the greats'. For me, it's slow and tedious, lacking in story or logic, acting and dialogue; it could have been cut by an hour and still been too long. A book with a great premise and story is ill-served by this self-indulgent piece of arty-crafty and highly pretentious nonsense.