2001: A Space Mediocrity

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2010)

Looking through the reviews on IMDb, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a mixed bag. Either you completely hate it, or you love it to bits. Rarely do you find a six out of ten stars review: most of the time, it gets either one or two stars, or nine or ten stars. Many positive reviewers argue that the people who hate the film 'miss the point', and on the flipside, most haters argue that there is no point to miss. Seeing as I had to watch it for a school project, reading the reviews made my expectations drop. When my group and I chose it, I thought it was going to be a badass science-fiction film with explosions and stuff. Boy, was I wrong
More often than not, when there are reviewers arguing there is 'deep meaning' to any media, whether it be books, albums or films, it ends up being pretentious twaddle. Especially in music (my favourite form of media). Therefore, I was slightly apprehensive of watching this film, even though I had to.
But less about me and more about the film. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 film directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is widely considered a classic, but most people I have asked think it is really boring. That is because it moves way too slowly. A lot of the scenes are awfully stretched for no apparent reason; half of this film could be taken out and you would still be able to get the basic gist of what is going on ('understanding' the film is something else). Character development and plot advancement is pretty sparse, as is dialogue, which means that you are bound to get bored at least once during the viewing.
Fortunately, almost everything in life has good sides and bad sides. The good, the extremely good even, side of this film is the audiovisual side. At the time, I imagine the visuals were absolutely stunning, and they still are today, so that speaks volumes. Especially the settings, i.e. the spaceships and planets, are very well done. The specifics of these spaceships, when examined, are very well thought out in terms of realism. The special effects used are also brilliant, and while you certainly should not watch the film for the visuals alone, they are very nice to look at regardless.
But not only is it a treat to the eye, it is also a treat to the ear: music is applied to its fullest in this film, going from easy-going classical music in the one boring scene, to eerie, chant-like music in the next. The film is intended to be more of an audial rather than a visual experience and it clearly shows in its creative soundtrack. The sound is where the film shines and while it does not always make it less of a boring experience it still shows clear signs of having been thought of thoroughly. Again, the sound also demonstrates knowledge of science on the part of the director, since he has taken into account the fact that there is no sound in Outer Space and has implemented that in the film accordingly, unlike other science-fiction films that get all flashy in Space with explosions and all that sort of thing, even though that is not even possible. It is these small details that really make you appreciate it just that bit more. While you may not enjoy the film, at least you can acknowledge that a great amount of time and effort went into its realization.
The music used in this film is never unfitting and always stays relevant. All the sounds used in this film are used for a reason—all the sounds in this film relate to what is going on on the screen—and even the voice of the computer, HAL9000, the slightest detail, has been considered. You would never find a dark scene with happy-go-lucky, upbeat tunes. A lot of the music and sounds used are still used to similar effect today, such as Johann Strauss' waltz An der schönen blauen Donau. Especially the opening theme, Richard Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra is commonly associated with the film.
The application of sound in this film is truly remarkable and saves it from being absolutely terrible, elevating it up to mediocre. Had it not been as good as it is, the visuals alone would not be enough of a redeeming factor to make it worthwhile. Even though I did not personally enjoy it, it rightfully deserves its place as an influential classic and is indeed mandatory viewing, regardless of the fact that it is boring. Undoubtedly it has influenced countless films in the genre and outside of the genre, and even if you are not a connoisseur of films, you can definitely feel its influence in other media as well. Overall, this film loses points for its duration to content ratio but gains points for its stunning visuals and brilliant audio putting it at a mediocre five out of ten stars, certainly not becoming of what is supposed to be a classic and not quite living up to my initial expectations, but if it were cut short by about an hour the film would be a brilliant watch. As I mentioned before, though, I still believe that it is mandatory viewing and I am sure there are some who would appreciate the slow pacing of the film. Just save yourself some money and rent it.