Cacophonous noise! Monkeys! Monolith! Monkeys learn basic tool use! Cut to the future, 9 years ago! People in space! Another monolith! Lets go to Jupiter!
Frankly, most people know the plot of 2001 by now. In fact I probably couldn’t spoil it if I wanted to. But I’ll still try and avoid too many.
Why this starts with about 2 minutes worth of what sounds like orchestra tune up with a black screen, I don’t know. It may have been a nice touch in the original cinema release but all it did was make me worry that my DVD player was broken. The same goes for the bit after the intermission.
I tried to watch this film many years ago and go really bored. Thankfully that didn’t happen this time. The monkey suits look great and the 20 minute sequence is fine. I think it was the future (I believe it was still my past) bit that I gave up as that too is slow.
Didn’t bother me this time. In fact I quite liked it. A bit of scientific accuracy, for the most part, never did anyone any harm. And the effects for their time are fantastic.
Those two points to flag up two issues that the film has though. The second is no doubt due to a limitation in the effects work. Not one engine is ever seen firing, for attitude adjustment or anything. I can forgive them that but it’s a bit glaring now. Everything is in glide mode. The other issue which was more pointed for me is with the space walk.
Why the hell park sooooooo far away from the craft? Then, what are they using to adjust themselves and slow down? And finally, why the hell doesn’t Dave attach a tether or something when he lands on the dish? They were so exacting with everything else that this really stuck out for me.
There’s not much point in me going on about the good points, or ranting too much about the bad. Besides the two crazy loud noise sections with blank screens and the fact that the monolith’s choral whaling gets a bit too much after a while, there’s the ending. It’s hippy trippy bollocks and it lasts far too long. I know its not supposed to be understandable, and I can read some stuff in to it, but it lets the whole movie down for the most part. Mainly because we never see Dave’s pod enter the monolith or even come close. That could have used scissors.
So yes it’s a great movie, though its probably too slow for many. What I’d advise if you like the hard sci fi aspects is that you watch it up until Dave his headed towards the monolith then click it off. There’s nothing more for you here.
Next up: District 13 – Ultimatum
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