Rating of
2/4
Not the great classice I expected to see
The M.O.W. - wrote on 08/01/08
This is one of the hardest movies to sit through, unless you like scenery over dialog. It has more shots of outer space than dialog, character development and a story combind.
It begins millions of years in the past, where a monolith somehow directs ancient homonids how to eat meat and use weapons. It then jumps to 1999, where yet another monolith is discovered. That monolith, when exposed to the light of the sun, sends a signal to Jupiter. NASA, or some space agency, sends a manned ship to Jupiter to find who or what is receiving the transmission. It is on this ship we meet the sci-fi icon, HAL, a computer which is programmed to think and act as close to human as possible.
Most of the movie is visual -- I've read that there is about 40 minutes of dialog in the entire 2 hour movie. Although the visuals are well done, especially the space scenes, they appear to take longer than they actually do without the characters in the scenes talking (when there is more than one in the scene).
I do not recommend "2001: A Space Odyssey". It's slow, and boring.
