It's an influential movie, but it's got its flaws.

Rating: 6/10 (2 December 2001)

2001: A Space Odyssey is worth seeing, because you'll understand references and be able to make conversation about it. However, you might not enjoy watching it. There were a few things I really liked about it, but I wouldn't say that I had a good time watching the film.
That's not to say that I particularly regret spending the time (it is a bit lengthy) to watch it. Afterwards it is interesting to mull over some of the themes, and develop your own take on it. I won't be so pompous as to try to feed you my interpretation of the meaning, because there are too many ways you could explain each thing. However, as vague as the metaphors are, I feel that Kubrick beats the viewer over the head with them. The phallic object(s), the question of whether or not man is special, "man's first instinct," and so on: I don't know about everyone else, but I felt like Kubrick tried a bit too hard to make his themes clear. I didn't know anything about the film beforehand, so I wasn't primed to come in and analyze everything. However, when the message and substance are so blatant (even if you can't be sure quite what they are), you are forced to self-consciously think about the movie while watching it. "Ugh, I've been watching birth imagery for the last five minutes," you think, and it detracts from the experience. Even if you realize you might be wrong.
The themes are certainly interesting questions, interesting things to think about. And I'm not saying that they're presented in a shock-value sort of way. Without dialogue, action, and dynamic camera work, though, when the artistic parts come up and come on so strong, it's just overkill. The ending sequence is particularly guilty of this. Everything is metaphor, and Kubrick chose some rather mundane ways to represent the grandiose, almost as if he thinks no one will have any clue what's going on otherwise. "Oh, come on, a bathtub?" you may find yourself griping.
As for the claims that the movie is boring, they may go a bit too far, but there is some validity to them. Certainly some scenes are most effective when they're stretched out longer than you'd expect. At least for me, Kubrick stretched them out far longer than was necessary. Given the flavor of the film, long sit-back-and-enjoy-the-beauty scenes seem out of place while you're trying to discover out what's going on, and they end long after you've taken it all in.
In all, if you enjoy your thought-provoking experiences coming in story form, you'll be disappointed. If you like to change how you view the world slowly, and don't take well to things that try to blow your mind, you'll be disappointed. If you're not interested in an experiment in film pace, you'll be disappointed. If you'd rather have fun watching a movie, and do the deep thinking later, you'll be disappointed. See the movie I suppose, but there will be many things that will make you want to roll your eyes.