A compelling story of the advance of mankind

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2005)

This story is told over elegant sequences, that with every advance in mankind/technology, there is a cost that we must pay.
This is first illustrated when the ape creatures discover tools (bones),after touching a strange monolith. And uses the bone to kill another ape, this murder is the cost of our new technology. After this violent encounter we are taken to another time and place...
As the story jumps to the future, we open the new age with new technology, in this case we see amazing establishing shots with space ships/stations. This entire scene is accompanied with the Blue Danbue Waltz. This part is where my rating of This movie dropped a star, as I am only 13 years old my attention span wears thin after "repeated" establishing shots.
About 30 minutes into the movie we are introduced to our protagonist. Here we have our first dialoge taking place on a space ship. At this point we discover that there has been some problems on another ship and the audience is kept in the dark about what is happening. We are then brought to more shots and classical music during a shot where our protagonist is brought to the lunar surface. Our next scene is of our main character presenting the problems at the station to a council, they seem to agree with him that the matter should be of absolute secrecy, and decide off camera about farther plans. As we cut to the next scene we are brought to a small ship with a group of scientist visiting a strange object imbedded in the lunar surface. Here we have our second meeting with the monolith. One of the men reaches out and touches the monolith starting the next step in our wheel of change.
Next we are introduced to a new protagonist on a trip to Saturn. We are also introduced to a new character, Hal, a super intelligent computer from a line of computers that have never made a mistake, in a little while he shall be viewed as the antagonist but not for now. As we come a little bit in to our voyage we have some dialect between Hal and Dave (the protagonist). After the conversation is almost at an end, Howe announces that there is a malfunction with the communication dish on the star ship. After further examination it is discovered that the dish was not damaged and there was a computer error, which has never happened before. As Dave and his fellow crew man decide what to do about the problem we are introduced to our new change, our technology (Hal), has developed a mind of its own and has emotions including revenge and anger. As the humans plot to shut down Hal, Hal learns of their plans and systematically kills the crew which is our cost for such great technology. The last crew member, Dave, is left to shut down Howe. Once this feat is completed Dave arrives at Saturn.
When venturing out in to space we again meet the monolith and as Dave enters it hes is brought in to an out of body experience that was translated as Dave dying. During a "dream" sequence, we see the progressive states of Daves life after his current state. Middle age, old and finally dying, as we see him dying Dave reaches out and for the last time, the monolith is touched. After this instance we see not an advance in technology, but in life as Dave dies and is reincarnated as a "Star Child", at the cost of his former self. Here the movie ends.