Profound, Ambitious, Pretentious

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2011)

2001 is one of those films that every serious movie fan should see--it is iconic, occasionally brilliant, highly cinematic and very ambitious. It is also ponderous, emotionally detached, and pretentious.
The plot is simple yet enigmatic. Chimp-like apes, who are human ancestors, are surprised to awake one morning and find a large featureless monolith in their camp. This monolith, through powers and methods unexplained, seems to set this particular group of primates on a new evolutionary course--they start using bone tools and eating meat, and they use their new-found abilities to triumph in battle against another troop of apes. The triumphant ape tosses his bone tool into the air--as it spins, the bone becomes a spacecraft. The implication is that the monolith somehow spurred human evolution, ultimately resulting in space-flight and the high-tech world we are in for the remainder of the film.
The story next follows a bland VIP who is traveling from Earth to a space station, and then onto the moon, to investigate a mysterious artifact. A monolith identical to the one which visited the apes in the prologue has been discovered buried on the moon, and the Americans who found it are keeping it secret. As our VIP completes his long journey to the moon monolith he reaches out and touches it and there is a loud humming sound.
The film then makes another cut--time has passed and we are now seeing a long-range spacecraft which is bound for Jupiter. It is explained (eventually) that the monolith on the moon broadcast a powerful signal to Jupiter, which prompts the Americans to send a team to Jupiter to investigate. We are introduced to the crew--two are conscious crewmen, others are in suspended animation awaiting revival once Jupiter is reached, and overseeing all is Hal, a sentient computer.
Hal is a very good chess player, but less expected, he appreciates drawing, is excellent at facial recognition, and can read lips. He eventually goes insane. Hal says the ship's antenna is going to fail in 72 hours. When the antenna is examined no flaw is found. No Hal 9000 has ever made an error so the human crew becomes suspicious. Is Hal's error a sign that worse things are to come? Yes. Hal becomes paranoid and suspicious of the human crew--after lip-reading a discussion where the possibility of shutting down Hal's higher functions is raised, Hal rationalizes that his own survival is more vital to the mission than the survival of the crew. One of the astronauts is murdered during a space walk, the crew in hibernation have their life support terminated, and the second astronaut is only able to save himself by taking extraordinary measures. This is the most exciting and suspenseful sequence in the film, and Hal's pleading and rationalizing once he realizes that he's going to be lobotomized is quite entertaining.
Our sole surviving astronaut, cut off from communication with Earth, enters the Jovian system and finds another monolith in orbit. What follows is abstract. He gets into one of his small space-pods and heads toward the Jovian monolith and appears to fall into a wormhole--he travels some undetermined distance in space and/or time and finds himself in an elegantly appointed room. He lives in this room for some time--he ages markedly over the next few minutes of the film. As he's eating a meal, looking decades older (where this food and where this room came from is unexplained but it must be related to the monoliths), he sees a very old version of himself in bed. A monolith is now in the room. As the very old version of himself reaches out to this monolith there's a transformation--the very old man becomes a fetus-- the Star-Child. Looking human yet more advanced, this Star-Child represents the next stage in human evolution. Just as the monolith at the beginning of the film spurred the apes into eventually becoming modern humans, so this monolith at Jupiter seems to have spurred the next big step in human evolution.
What makes this movie great? The music is terrific--the classical score is perfect. The special effects are extraordinary--Kubrick's attention to detail is meticulous, and the stately pacing and utter silence of the space scenes are admirably accurate. Hal is a terrific character. There are some amazing shots and cuts--the bone becoming a space ship is very famous, Hal's red-eye gaze is brilliant and his soothing tone of voice is perfect, and the Star-Child at the end of the film is justifiably famous.
Flaws? The acting is wooden and, other than Hal, the characters are uninteresting. The pacing is often slow, the tone is cold and detached. By making a case for intelligent design (even if the 'designers' are aliens instead of God) Kubrick gives weight to the erroneous notion that human evolution was nudged along by God.
2001 is a flawed masterpiece.