2010

Warning: This might be a long review.

I seem to recall that got some underwhelming reviews back in the day. My father (God bless him) was crazy enough to take me to see this film in the theater when I was 9 years old. I had never seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I hated this movie at the time and was bored to tears. It was not quite as shady as my Mom taking me to see Yentyl, but I think deep down all parents suck and always fail their children on every level. Somebody thinking a 9 year old should sit through THIS is a prime example of why I think that. Sorry, Dad. I love you, but You Suck.

I saw it on TV a few years later (like when I was in my early twenties) after I had seen 2001. I recall liking it a lot. My opinion is not as warm in hindsight because my tastes in entertainment have evolved and changed. What I will say, and this is something this movie doesn't get enough credit for: The script is totally solid. I would go so far as to call it great. The acting is fine too. It would have to be considering the money they spent on the all-star cast. I want to acknowledge that huge and important truth before I talk smack about this movie. And smack will be talked.

The script and acting are aces. What is not? The direction. The tone. Siskel and Ebert hated this film because they objected to having answers to one of the most mysterious films in movie history. Getting answers is defnitely a double-edged sword. Revealing Who Killed Laura Palmer literally destroyed Twin Peaks, the franchise most like 2001 in my mind, causing viewers to lose interest and the network to cancel it. On the other hand, knowing it's Leland in hindsight makes it scary amazing when you rewatch that series. As a mystery, Twin Peaks became worthless after the reveal. About a dysfunctional family and the horrors of incest, Twin Peaks never felt so timely and relevant to that important issue in hindsight compared to when it was first airing. The entirety of Twin Peaks is now Laura Palmer's cry for help, and it's amazing for that. So no, Siskel and Ebert whining about losing their mystery is a nonsense complaint. Reveals and mystery solves have value too.

The problem for me is that the film is entirely unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001 was weird, colorful, visually stunning, had quirky classical music, and little dialogue to up the tension and raise the mystery. This movie is played totally straight instead, and is 100% bland for it. I suspect the bullet points of this movie of why Hal malfunctioned (not actually his fault), what happened to Dave Bowman (it's confirmed he became the Starchild), and what the seeming purpose of the Monolith is (to create a second sun) could have been revealed to the audience in a film with a lot less talking and casual conversation. In point of fact, having those reveals in a film with a similar tone would make them feel more "real" and "official". Yeah, reportedly Kubrick gave the film his blessing. But his name is nowhere on it. And I feel the absence of wide-angle camera shots, classical music, and dialogue-free happenings make the movie feel less-than the original. And I'm sure the director would argue you can't actually compete with the original. But you CAN try to pay homage to it. You CAN be more respectful to the fact that it was weird. Just because you can now explain the weird things doesn't make them not weird. This movie would have been better off remembering that.

The Dave Bowman stuff was amazing, and I really, really dug how the ending of the movie was a full-on redemption for Hal. "I understand." And all he really needed was a human who stopped lying to him. And the ghost of Dave coming back to invite him to wherever he is gave THEIR relationship a redemption too, which I love.

The cold war stuff in the movie dates it terribly. And it's weird how the computers in 2001 seem more realistic than the ones in 2010. 2010 tried to make the computers more realistic to how they worked in the 1980's. 2001 made how they work sort of fantastical so their screens are very familiar to what we see today. Another reason the movie would have been better off taking more design cues from the original.

And yeah, it's hard to take the movie seriously when it gets the politics of the future all wrong. Yes, we still have problems with Russia, but in 2010 our President was a dove, and most of our problems were either from within, or on a global scale due to the urgency of climate change. In this movie the producers think we're gonna be at war with the Soviets, which is more fantastical and fake-sounding than a million Starchilds and Monoliths. Of course twenty years ago I would have considered both more plausible than Donald Trump, so it's not like the real world isn't bizarre enough.

Speaking of millions of Monoliths, wasn't that cool? That was cool.

It's an interesting mystery for sure, because for much of the movie, even though the audience didn't understand 2001 all that well, we actually know more about what happened to the Discovery than the characters in this film do. They are sort of playing catch-up from the audience's perspective, which is interesting. We know the details of what happened, but not what they meant. Heywood and the Russians know absolutely nothing. Interesting idea.

One last thing to note. There is absolutely NO hint whatsoever in 1984 that Helen Mirren is going to wind up as hot as she wound up becoming. She is so plain in the movie (and her Russian accent is laughable) that I cannot believe this is the same smoking hot woman she became when she was in her 60's and 70's. Frankly, that actually makes no sense to me. Maybe it's because when she was 70 she knew she was hot and carried herself as such. But there is no explanation for how bland she was as a younger woman. I can't rightly say if 2022 Mirren is still smoking, but she's still probably hotter than this.

I guess that review wasn't TOO long after all. I got to everything I needed to say. ***1/2.