Amazon.com video review:
No director could ever have hoped to repeat the artistic
achievement of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and nobody knew that better than Peter Hyams, who
made this much more conventional film from the first of three sequel
novels by Arthur
C. Clarke. Whereas Kubrick made a poetic film of mind-expanding
ideas and metaphysical mysteries, Hyams shouldn't be blamed for taking
a more practical, crowd-pleasing approach. In revealing much of what
Kubrick deliberately left unexplained, 2010 lacks the enigmatic
awe of its predecessor, but it's still a riveting tale of space
exploration and extraterrestrial contact, beginning when a joint
American-Soviet mission embarks to determine the cause of failure of
the derelict spaceship Discovery. Having arrived at
Discovery near the planet Jupiter, the American mission leader
(Roy Scheider) and his Russian counterpart (Helen Mirren) must
investigate the apparent failure of the ship's infamous onboard
computer, HAL 9000, as well as the meaning of countless mysterious
black monoliths amassing on Jupiter's surface (an interpretation
Kubrick originally left up to his viewers). Meanwhile, Earth is on the
brink of nuclear war, and an apparition of astronaut David Bowman
(Keir Dullea) appears to repeatedly promise that "something wonderful"
is about to happen. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com video review:
No director could ever have hoped to repeat the artistic
achievement of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and nobody knew that better than Peter Hyams, who
made this much more conventional film from the first of three sequel
novels by Arthur
C. Clarke. Whereas Kubrick made a poetic film of mind-expanding
ideas and metaphysical mysteries, Hyams shouldn't be blamed for taking
a more practical, crowd-pleasing approach. In revealing much of what
Kubrick deliberately left unexplained, 2010 lacks the enigmatic
awe of its predecessor, but it's still a riveting tale of space
exploration and extraterrestrial contact, beginning when a joint
American-Soviet mission embarks to determine the cause of failure of
the derelict spaceship Discovery. Having arrived at
Discovery near the planet Jupiter, the American mission leader
(Roy Scheider) and his Russian counterpart (Helen Mirren) must
investigate the apparent failure of the ship's infamous onboard
computer, HAL 9000, as well as the meaning of countless mysterious
black monoliths amassing on Jupiter's surface (an interpretation
Kubrick originally left up to his viewers). Meanwhile, Earth is on the
brink of nuclear war, and an apparition of astronaut David Bowman
(Keir Dullea) appears to repeatedly promise that "something wonderful"
is about to happen. The DVD includes an interview with Arthur
C. Clarke, an eight-page booklet, and original trailers for
2001 and 2010. --Jeff Shannon
