Oh, my.

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 1998)

Well, I've had some time on my hands recently, as I am on Christmas break, and I decided a few movies would be a good way to waste my time. Let me make it clear now, Kubrick's 2001 was definitely a good way to *waste* that time. I wish I had read the book, because this film was such a confused and muddled mess, I hardly know where to begin.
For starters, the multitudes of strange and artificially created gravity fields in the ships were so mind-bogglingly unuseful that it wasted the time Kubrick took finding ways to pull that stuff off. The special effects are remarkable, especially for its time period, but why do the ships move so slowly? Another IMDB user (no offense) commented that the 'realistic pace' of space flight is slow and 'leisurely.' Since when? Space is pretty much just that... SPACE. There's nothing around for *light years*. To get anywhere, space ships, even the ones we use nowadays, go at tremendous speeds. If it was otherwise, no one would get anywhere!
Anyway, the movie may be trying to be artistic, but it fails unless the viewer is captivated. I got so bored during this movie, I regressed to making MST3K-like comments with my stepdad. It's actually pretty entertaining that way. I honestly believe that this movie would be *much* better had I read the book. Unfortunately, Kubrick relies too heavily on our imagination or our knowledge of the book to get the points of this movie across. In my view, pretty much a long and boring movie. And don't call me a cynic or an uneducated fool. Those who do might want to try to take an objective point of view in watching the movie. One might discover the horrible truth about the emperor's clothes.