I really wanted to love 2001: A Space Odyssey. The story is right down my alley and the visuals are awe inspiring. Kubrick is a master at framing shots and using lighting to do so much more than just light the sets. Oh, and the sets! 2001 is from 1968 and I still feel like everything looks futuristic (except the control panels, which look like shitty Atari games). If some one would have had the balls to reign Kubrick in, 2001 could easily be five stars. The issue is that 2001 lingers in every scene. We start out with a blank screen and the score slowly growing louder. When we finally get to a scene, it goes way too long. I don't want it to sound like my issue is that 2001 is a long movie; the issue is that it wastes time. Every scene just keeps going and going after the action is done or they make the action take so long. If this was made in 2019, I would assume that they were trying to make a movie for people who compulsively check their phone. We spend like fifteen minutes watching people in monkey suits (they look okay sometimes but the monkey sounds sound like they are being played through a tin can) hop around. The purpose of the first section of the movie is very simple and could have been done in three minutes, but it feels like they wanted to play the whole song in the score, so they bloat the scene to elongate it. There are tons of Space shots and they all feel like they are as long as they need to be to play the entire song. The score frustrated me too (to a lesser degree); it's all classical music or a choir making a warbling sound that got really annoying really quick. If we cut half of the movie out, it would be so much better. I recognize that 2001 is a very influential movie and that it revolutionized cinema, but that doesn't make it a better movie for me. I respect how important it is, but it just kills me that it plods along like it has all day to get where it's going. I get that you move slower in Space, but they milk it too much. My only strong issue with 2001 is how much extra time they spend on scenes that do not need it. It's not a "slow burn", it's six minutes just watching planets. The ending is needlessly complicated and confusing (and of course too damn long and drawn out), but I don't mind having to unpack a story. My only real issue is how much of my time is wastes. I know it's not a popular opinion, but I just can't look past the issue.