Great Special Effects, Repetitive Story

Rating: 6/10 (23 April 2011)

I saw this movie in a high school class, and the teacher explained things along the way as we watched. The theme of the story is clear enough-big black monoliths are affecting humanity's evolution over time, starting with our primate ancestors learning to use objects rather than just hands and feet to fight and hunt, and immediately jumping into where we start exploring outer space. The astronauts who reach the Moon (remember the movie was made the year before we actually put men on it) see another monolith, but nothing evidently happens right away.
Then there is the falling-out between HAL, the intelligent computer which runs the manned spaceship traveling further out into the solar system, and its human crew. It is unclear why this occurs, but the result is only one human crew member survives, and in the end...presumably he evolves into something greater than human. Whoever is behind the monoliths is never explained or hinted at.
The special effects are spectacular for the era. The overall storyline, however, is not really deep. But this movie was made in the psychedelic era, so it works as a period piece.