Review of 2010 (1984) by Aaron C — 10 Jul 2012

Personally, I found this to be a very good sequel. It doesn't match the arty style of the original, and its a little more of a standard sci fi movie, but it's very classily done and tells the next chapter in a easy to follow, more character driven way. I guess its a better film when you look at it as a 'sequel to the book' (and based on the books sequel) and try not to compare it to the original film so much.

I guess where people might be disappointed, might be that it ties up a number of lose ends from the original, especially as it explains HALs actions. Really this film is the redemption of HAL and personally I really enjoyed how that worked out.

Perhaps people didn't like the lack of abstract story telling that first one had. Personally, I don't think this film could have worked with that.

What I liked was having Roy Scheider (always good) bringing a grounded, logic driven character to the situation. It was like having Chief Brody transported into space. The rest of the cast were good, especially John Lithgow, and he has a great scene in which he has to travel outside to get to the Discovery (floating over Jupiter) and he's struggle with the situation is very well played.

The effects are great, and the film holds up well with other sci fi movies of the time. I guess where the film might have had issues when released in 1984 was that, whilst 2001 was released in the sixties and was the first real 'space' movie, and thus could be slow and atmospheric, audiences in 1984 had just seen 3 Star Wars movies, Alien, and a wide number of other space related films which used action and horror to build suspense.

It's a shame that the third and forth books have not been made into films, as I found myself wanting to see 2061 once this film ended.