Not the movie I was expecting

Rating: Null/10 (15 October 2004)

***SPOILERS INCLUDED***
For years I heard people claim that this movie is "cinematic genius". Hmmm, I didn't get that out of this movie. First off, the whole "Dawn of Man" scenes. It would of been interesting if it was 10 minutes long instead of about 30. Even for the time of 1968, the apes were very unbelievable. I'm not sure why people see these scenes as magnificent. I got bored about 1/2 way through. I'll admit, the monolith coming into view did get me intrigued and I wanted to see where the movie was going. Next, I thought the scenes with Dr. Floyd were also interesting. However, they could of been half the length. How many times do we have to watch people walk upside down to go into another room?! And why do we need to hang onto the space scenes for so freaking long!! I get it, they're in space, they are on big ships...MOVE ON!! I understand that it's fascinating to speculate about how the future is going to look. I mean we can all remember how Back To The Future Part II did kind of the same thing. However, we didn't have to watch 10 minutes of a floating pen, and people walking.
All of the scenes with HAL were interesting. Again, way to freaking slow. When Dave has to go rescue Frank I thought I would finally see some action. But...no. It takes an agonizingly long time to accomplish this and to be honest I fell asleep for a few minutes. The flying through time and getting to Jupiter and the star child all interesting. But, by this time I just wanted to end this movie going experience. I kept wondering when this thing was going to end. The monolith was never fully explained and that really irritated me.
Sure, it was supposed to be a thought provoking movie. I guess it was, because it made me try to think of how I can get my money back.
This movie is average at best and a total waste of time. The special effects for the time it was made are pretty remarkable and that's about it, not what I would call a "cinematic genius" of a movie. Most of the folks who think this is a great movie, should get a life and venture out of the safe walls of academia.