In space, no-one can hear you yawn.

Rating: 4/10 (12 December 2015)

I was born in 1968, the year that saw the original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey; of course, I didn't really get into sci-fi cinema until almost a decade later, when that other movie—you know, the one with the droids, blasters and aliens—broke box-office records. Now aged 47, and fully prepared (or so I thought) for a more cerebrally challenging experience than George Lucas's space opera, I've finally caught up with Kubrick's celebrated sci-fi 'masterpiece'. And I haven't been so bored in a long time.
It's not that I need bucket-loads of action and excitement to enjoy a sci-fi movie—I have deep affection for leisurely '70s genre efforts such as Silent Running and Dark Star (both of which clearly owe a debt to 2001)—but Kubrick's film takes pomposity and tedium to a new level. Perhaps if I was stoned, as I imagine many of the film's original fans were when they first saw it, and watching on a cinema screen instead of a TV, I might have been a little more impressed: the visuals are undeniably awe inspiring, the music is grandiose, the psychedelic finale is a trip, and there is much symbolism and narrative ambiguity for intellectuals to chew over, but at two hours and twenty minutes, with very little dialogue and a tortuously slow pace, I struggled to stay awake.
In short: give me a lightsaber battle any day of the week.
4/10, mostly for the surprisingly effective ape-man suits and the highly detailed spacecraft model effects.