Selt-indulgent, painfully slow and just boring

Rating: 2/10 (23 October 2008)

There are spoilers throughout this review.
This starts at the "Dawn of Man". A bunch of apes find a black monolith and start to evolve slowly. Then it cuts to 2001. A black monolith has been discovered on the moon--buried. When the light hits the monolith it starts to emit a message to the moons of Jupiter. Astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea), Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) and some other astronauts (in suspended animation) are sent to Jupiter to investigate. However their computer HAL (with the creepy voice of Douglas Rain) goes crazy and kills everybody except for Dullea. Dullea gets to Jupiter and "enters" a black monolith floating in space. He's then in a room being watched over by alien beings. He ages rapidly and dies...but becomes a "star child". It seems he has been chosen (for whatever reason) to show the next step in evolution to man. Basically the monolith is a gift from some alien beings who watch over the entire universe. They helped the human race evolve. The monolith on the moon was buried so man would dig it up. When they got to it the signal sent to Jupiter was to alert the aliens that man was ready for his next step.
That's MY view of it. Everybody has different interpretations of this movie.
I have vague recollections of seeing this back in 1968 at the age of 6 (the film is G rated). I remember the apes at the beginning scaring me...and then falling asleep. Since then I've seen it multiple times at revival theatres and, on one occasion, saw a brand new print with stereo at a play house. Yes--the special effects are impressive. Yes--the music is great. But the movie is long, far too slow and just boring! It moves at such a slow pace that it's sleep-inducing. There's very little dialogue but that's a blessing because what there is is pretty lousy. The human characters have no personality whatsoever and speak in monotones and simple short sentences. Lockwood and Dullea are supposedly buddies but I never got the feeling that they even liked each other! This isn't anything against either actor--these poor guys are given nothing to work with. For instance when HAL kills Lockwood and the other astronauts what's Dullea's reaction? Nothing. He barely raises an eyebrow. I don't blame Dullea--I think he was just playing it like director Stanley Kubrick told him. How can you care about characters who are given no personality or motivations? You know there's a problem when HAL comes across as more real than Poole and Bowman! Also HAL gets paranoid and kills Frank. Could someone please tell me how a COMPUTER gets paranoid???? They give an explanation (sort of) in "2010" but it was pretty stupid.
There are a few good things about this. Douglas Rains' voice of HAL is suitably creepy. Lockwood strips down to his shorts at one point showing his muscular body. The entrance into the star gate is still impressive (if far too long).
People seem to forget that a lot of people hated this movie when it first came out. MGM executives thought they had a disaster on their hands and most people couldn't make heads or tales out of the plot. During a break in a premiere screening for studio executives someone said, "Something better happen in the second half or we're dead!" But, inexplicably, audiences seemed to love it and it's now regarded as a masterpiece. Aside from being thoroughly bored by it I find it cold and impersonal too. The message seems to be that man is an insignificant little thing in the universe. It's all in the hands of these gods and you can't do anything to change it. That's a pretty creepy message but the movie drags out everything to a ridiculous degree. Boring, slow and sleep-inducing. The 2 is for the special effects and Dullea and Lockwood (I like both actors despite this movie).