yoman3

I had to write a review for a movie (I had a choice of only 1 of 3 movies) for my Mass Media Class: (ignore any grammatical mistakes this is just a rough draft)
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Having seen the much more entertaining Kubrick films such as Dr. Stranglove, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange, and assuming that every other Stanley Kubrick film is better than this one, I can safely say that 2001: A Space Odyssey is Kubrick's worst film.

The problem with this movie is that it's...boring. This movie is more pretentious than insightful, more dull than entertaining. Part 1 was relatively interesting, I mean, it was sort of cool to see a bunch of monkeys scream and jump around. But like I said, the first part is just too long and there's too much "doing nothing" time spent. The best part of part 1 was the visuals: the monkeys looked creepy enough to keep my interest. Part 2 was a joke, however. It was the most "art-housey" and pretentious part of the film, possibly more so than part 4. Most of the time it was people talking about the most boring things possible, and it felt more like if the film makers aimed to portray the day-to-day happenings in a futuristic space society more than they aimed to make the movie entertaining. Part 3 was suspenseful, sure, but only during the final 10 minutes or so. It was kind of interesting to see the BBC interview and watch the two crew members interact with HAL, but the "good" parts almost don't make up for the long, drawn out, just plain boring parts. Part 4 was...I can't even explain it. It was trippy, but not a good trippy, it was a kind of trippy where, to enjoy it, it would be mandatory for a person to be on some kind of drug. The end of the movie almost makes up for the over 20 minutes of Dave flying through space with NOTHING ELSE going on, because the end is just plain mesmerizing.It's weird, yes, but weird in the best way possible (contrary to the rest of the film)
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Listen, I'm fine with a movie being an allegory or a metaphor, or having lots of allegories and lots of metaphors, as long as it's entertaining. I'm fine with a movie being drawn out to the point of near boredom, as long as it's entertaining. But I'm not fine with a boring movie being an allegory. I'm especially not fine with having to search deeply for an allegory, I don't want to analyze a movie to make it seem good to me, I want to be entertained - that's the point of a movie, to entertain. I don't want to have to read Nietzsche or The Odyssey to "understand" this movie. If a movie is insightful, allegoric, has a message to convey, great - it just has to be entertaining. 2001: A Space Odyssey thought it was the best film ever, but what it came across as was one of the most pretentious, snobby films ever made. The most that can be said about this film is that it's interesting: there are some very "cool" parts in this movie. It's just over shadowed by incredibly, pretentiously boring parts. If I had to watch this movie straight through without doing anything else (I was multitasking while watching this movie), I think I would kill myself.

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Also, you don't need to read it because it's just a summary, but I needed to write a summary of the film as well:
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I have no idea what this movie is about. I can explain what
happens in this movie easily enough, but as for what it's "about"...I
have no idea. From what I gathered after watching it, the movie is
about a giant black rectangle (or "monolith") that brings about the
advancement of human life.

The movie is broken up into four seperate parts, the first part
showing us "The Dawn of Man". When I first read a summary about this
movie, I thought that the begining was going to be a five minute
introduction, just contrasting the distant past to the distant future.
I was wrong. This part lasts at least twenty minutes if not more, and
it amounts to nothing more than a bunch of monkeys eating food and
walking around. As to what specifically happens: it's pretty easy to
explain: there's a tribe of monkeys eating plants, then they walk
towards a watering hole, then they are "attacked" by another tribe of
monkeys. I put "attacked" in quotes only because they weren't
necessarily attacked, but it was a screaming match and tribe #2 won.
The next morning monkey tribe #1 wakes up to find the monolith towering
over them. After about 3 minutes of just looking at it, one of the
monkeys goes to touch it, and after that the monkey learns how to use
bones to make weapons. Well, tribe #1 becomes omnivores now, as they
just learned they could kill pigs to eat meat. Yet there is more. Tribe
#1 goes back to the watering hole with their newfound intelligence and
beats some of the monkeys in tribe #2 to death for control of the
watering hole. Thus ends part 1 and the opening credits role.

Part 2 is probably the worst part in the entire movie.
Basically, a scientist (Dr. Heywood R. Floyd) is traveling in space
(the year is now 1999) on a spacebus on his way to the moon. On his way
there, he stops at a bigger space station and does some very mundane
work: talks with some other scientists about a "mystery," wishes his
daughter a happy birthday, and conducts a business meeting. The
Doctor's purpose on his trip to the moon is to investigate a monolith
that's been uncovered from beneath the moon's surface - and once he
does so the part ends. A lot part 2's time is spent showing giant
spaceships floating around to classical music.

Part 3 is the most interesting part, and the part that is mot
integrated into pop culture. Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Francis Poole are
two scientists on board Discovery One, a ship that's on its way to
Jupiter. It's also important to mention that there are three other
scientists sleeping in cryogenic hibernation. Most of Part 3 is spent
showing the everyday interactions between Dave, Francis and the HAL
9000, a genius and perfect (emphasis on "perfect") super computer who
is capable of showing human emotions, and is just as much of a
character as either of the two scientists are. Anyway, after some more
mundane stuff (like watching a BBC interview, watching Dave sketch some
drawings and show HAL, watching Dave walk), the movie gets interesting.
It turns out the HAL 9000 made a mistake in detecting a malfunction on
on a part of the ship. This comes as a surprise to the two scientists,
for the HAL 9000 is supposed to be infallible - obviously this means
there is something wrong with HAL. Since HAL is an all seeing, all
hearing supercomputer, the two scientists try to hide as best as they
can to discuss what they should do about the broken HAL. As luck would
have it, the HAL 9000 is able to read the doctors' lips, and finds out
that the scientists plan to shut it down.

The HAL 9000, in an attempt to not jeopordize the mission (it
believes that if it were deactivated, that the mission to Jupiter would
be in jeopordy), kills Dr. Poole while he's out in space doing work on
the ship (HAL does so by severing the cord to Dr. Poole's oxygen tank).
When Dave goes out on a spacepod to rescue Dr. Poole, the HAL 9000
terminates the three hibernating scientists, as well as locks all the
entrances back into the ship. Now knowing of HAL's plan but unable to
do anything about it, Dave risks his life to re-enter the ship by
blowing the emergency airlock door open. Dave then takes the long walk
to HAL's mainframe to disconnect him for good. The last thing part 3
shows is Dave watching a pre-recorded video informing the crew about
the true intentions of the flight to Jupiter: to investigate the
monolith's (from part 2) powerful radio transmission that was aimed at
Jupiter.

Part 4 is freaking crazy. It contains no dialouge whatsoever,
and shows Dave, now alone and in a small spacepod, making his way
towards Jupiter. On his way there he comes face to face with another
monolith floating in space, which apprently sends him through what is
commonly reffered to as the "Star Gate." This Star Gate takes Dave
through "space." Dave travels at possibly the speed of light through
multiple beams of multicolored lights, and through earthlike landscapes
in multiple colors. There is absouletely not dialouge in this part. At
the end of Dave's LSD trip, he ends up in a room that's decorated in
what seems like 19th century English decor. Every few minutes Dave sees
and older version of himself, and then becomes that older version of
himself. Finally, on his deathbed (he ends up seeing the eldest version
of himself in a bed in that room), he sees a monolith for one final
time, before he transformed into the "starchild," and the final scene
in the movie is Dave looking over Earth (in starchild form).