When the DrsC were courting, too many decades ago, the film 2001, A Space Odyssey was released. We saw it in the theater then and liked it. Recently Turner Classic Movies reran it, we recorded it, and watched for a second time tonight.
Wow, talk about films that have aged poorly, 2001 takes the cake. The actually good special effects of the space ships and EVA, which won an Oscar in that pre-CGA era, are now ho-hum. Everybody does them, nobody notices.
So what's left is the story and the acting. The story could almost be written on a 3x5 card. The acting is workmanlike, gets the job done but nothing more.
The 'apes' resembled nothing more than undergraduates in chimp suits, acting silly. Leaving the viewer with no idea what happened to the 3 (?) astronauts who survived the encounter with HAL is storytelling malpractice. The psychedelic finish is passé.
Finally, the entire film is an hour too long, I got bored waiting for something to happen. Very little of substance actually does happen, and more needs to.
Our recommendation, give this Thanksgiving gobbler a pass. It no longer works.
Tonight reminds me of an L. P. Hartley quote, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." Our tastes have really changed ... a lot.
