A classic for many reasons, but not a perfect movie.

Rating: 8/10 (2 February 2007)

When released in 1968, these special effects blew people away...and I can see why. These are some great special effects, even for now. It seems as though Kubrick's whole reason for making this was to capture the beauty of classical music being played to long scenes of interesting space sets and special effects. While it was very interesting for it's time, it's lost some pizazz now that every movie has this. However the part of the film that is still really interesting today is the Dawn of Man opening segment where man's ape like descendent's learn how to commit violence. It's amazing how ape like they actually got these creatures to look, while still having a weird human like quality to them. The biggest story in the film was a spaceship's extremely intelligent computer Hal is taking over the ship. It's an interesting plot, but one that doesn't kick in until late in to the film. The main problems with this movie are it's lack of a real central plot and no explanation for many supernatural things that happen, but nonetheless, this is still a classic for many reasons, but even a classic can be flawed.
My rating: *** 1/2 out of ****. 147 mins. Rated G