Another interesting failure.

Rating: 5/10 (30 April 2019)

It's hard to know where to begin with this movie or how to say something that hasn't been said before.
I'd rank this with Eraserhead and Under the Skin of movies I dig stylistically for their visually conveyed plots and enigmatic tone but ultimately is little more than an interesting failure because of the lack of plot trajectory.
The montagecraft and visuals are stunning but that counts for little without substance and this movie lacks that both in characters and plot, no amount of originality can make up for that. I dislike how polarized the dialogue level is; we either get none or a suddenly very candid scene and the final plot line with HAL does drag. When a deliberately cool voiced machine has the most personality of anyone in the movie you know there's a problem.
I wrote an essay on this movie and it's underlying meaning when I was 15 so I'm not going to say there isn't a lot to chew on philosophically but this isn't a philosophy book. A lot of the cinematic tricks (even the iconic bone to ship cut) is messily handled.
At about half the length this could have been good but I suggest you go in just treating it as a feature length music video with spoken asides. The music is pretty well chosen except for an obnoxious usage of Blue Danube. BASIC!!!!!!
Ultimately a somewhat admirable, very interesting and absolutely pretentious affair but a different handling could have made it the best movie ever.