Visual Delight - Narrative Mess

Rating: Null/10 (5 June 1999)

I don't mind watching "2001" on widescreen laser disc, because it is a visually impressive film and fun to utlize the CAV functions with. And after reading enough comments from people and having read the Clarke novel I do "understand" it as much as I guess anyone ever can.
But here is the bottom line. If a movie is supposed to be good, the viewer should not have to figure out what it's all about from a novelization or from the comments of other viewers or through multiple viewings. The story should be clear, coherent and understandable the first time through, or else the filmmaker is gypping the audience as far as I'm concerned. And from a story standpoint, that's exactly what Kubrick does. How in the world is anyone supposed to figure this out the first time through? The narrative is hopelessly muddled, actors are purposefully told to be dull and uncharismatic and show no normal human emotion, and the last twenty minutes is devoted to a giant light show. By contrast, Clarke's novelization had a better moment when Bowman enters the Stargate where he gets to blurt out a last horrified message to Mission Control, "My God it's full of stars!" that even Peter Hyams retained for 2010 because it made more narrative sense. These are the kinds of touches that the film sorely needed. Also bad, was Kubrick's decision to drop Alex North's score in favor of classical music cues. Having played the North cues against where they were intended to go, I think they elevated the film to a level that would have made sequences like the "Dawn Of Man" less tiresome and plodding. Only the Ligeti piece for the monolith should have been retained.
This is an interesting film if you get used to it, but I have to laugh when I keep hearing this ranked as one of the greatest ever. As far as I'm concerned, "2001" isn't even the best science fiction movie of 1968 (that honor belongs to "Planet Of The Apes" which has the vital elements of narrative, plot, characters and good actors that "2001" is woefully deficient in)