"2001: A Space Odyssey" Review (WARNING: SPOILERS)

Hey, guys. It's me, OptimusPhillip, here with a review of Stanley Kubrick's classic movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey

I honestly dislike the movie. I think that it got too many things wrong and not enough right to offset those bad things. To show what I mean, here's a list of what I think they did and didn't get right.

Right:

1. The HAL9000 plot (at least in concept). The concept of the ship's onboard A.I. computer, HAL9000 (or Hal), malfunctioning was an interesting idea and I wish that it seemed like the crux of the movie.
2. The cast. The cast did a really good job at doing what they had to do, especially Hal's voice actor, who delivered all of the lines in a computer-esque monotone that still comes across as menacing.

Wrong:

1. The pacing. The movie's pacing is done so poorly, with too many long, boring scenes that either shouldn't have been there or should've moved faster, I was almost surprised when we got that shot of the moon bus flying by really fast. The movie feels like a 22 minute episode of a TV show, or maybe a 45 minute episode, but either way, they shouldn't have tried to force so little into a 2:28 runtime. 
2. The execution of the HAL9000 plot. When it comes down to it, the HAL9000 plot was executed quite poorly. There were some good scenes, but, again, the pacing just throws the rest of the scenes off, and I can't tell if this is supposed to be the main plot or the subplot. And while his monotone voice does sound kind of menacing, the only menacing thing that he does is say "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't let you do that." He doesn't even come across as threatening when he kills the hibernating crew.
3. The monolith plot. This could've made for an interesting story dynamic, with humanity's evolution being an artificial phenomenon caused by this mysterious black rectangular monolith, but it goes absolutely nowhere and the closest we get to a payoff is what looks like an LSD trip and shots of Dave looking at an older version of himself and becoming that again and again until he's a giant fetus looking at Earth. What are we supposed to take from that? And is this the main plot or just the subplot? While the Hal plot feels like both, the monolith plot feels like neither.
4. The musical score. The musical score just doesn't work. The Blue Danube plays in a ton of scenes where you feel like something else should be there, and there are spots where there is just dead silence only broken by the annoying sound of Frank's and Dave's respective breathing apparatuses, and sometimes that's not even there. There really should've been a real music score here, and not just the placeholder music Kubrick decided to use instead of the actual score that The Blue Danube was holding a place for. And is it just me or would the mood be better set if there were some appropriate music to go with the scenes? Like when we get those shots of the crew's vitals shutting down we should get some type of dramatically sad music, like when Prime dies in "The Transformers: The Movie".

People say that the accompanying book explains everything whose absence affects the movie, but I'm not going to let this movie off because of that: If it isn't in the movie, then it isn't in the movie. Just because a book based on a movie or a book made into a movie contains important information about the movie's events that is absent from the movie does not mean that that information is a valid part of the movie's canon: they are separate works and must be treated as such.

This is just a movie that had potential, but just disappointed on so many levels, so I give it a 2/10, the lowest score I've given a movie ever. It feels like something they should've put on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, except the movies I've seen on MST3K are better than this.