Synopsis
While planet Earth poises on the brink of nuclear self-destruction, a team of Russian and American scientists aboard the Leonov hurtles to a rendezvous with the still-orbiting Discovery spacecraft and its sole known survivor, the homicidal computer HAL.
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Cast
- Roy ScheiderDr. Heywood Floyd
- John LithgowDr. Walter Curnow
- Helen MirrenTanya Kirbuk
- Bob BalabanDr. R. Chandra
- Keir DulleaDr. David Bowman
- Douglas RainHAL 9000 (voice)
- Madolyn Smith OsborneCaroline Floyd
- Savely KramarovDr. Vladimir Rudenko
- Taliesin JaffeChristopher Floyd
- James McEachinVictor Milson
Recommendations
- 90
Time Out
Hyams has not come up with a climax to match Kubrick's rush through the star-gate; but this is still space fiction of a superior kind, making the Star Trek movies look puny by comparison. - 80
The A.V. Club
2010 is an essential text of the late Cold War. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
You have to make some distinctions in your mind. In one category, "2001: A Space Odyssey" remains inviolate, one of the handful of true film masterpieces. In a more temporal sphere, "2010" qualifies as superior entertainment, a movie more at home with technique than poetry, with character than with mystery, a movie that explains too much and leaves too little to our sense of wonderment, but a good movie all the same. - 75
ReelViews
Almost paradoxically, 2010 may be unnecessary, but it is nevertheless a worthwhile effort. - 60
The New York Times
A perfectly adequate though not really comparable - sequel to Stanley Kubrick's witty, mind- bending science-fiction classic, ''2001: A Space Odyssey.' - 60
Empire
Not a masterpiece, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's pleasing to see a sequel strive so hard to reach the same heights. That it fails is through no fault of its own - the original simply raised the bar too high. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
As a standard science-fiction film, 2010 is fine. It has all the right plot elements, dramatic tension, and eye-popping special effects. The performances are uniformly good, the space-adventure scenes are excitingly handled, and the reappearance of HAL 9000 and Dullea is downright eerie. Yet it's hard to get over the fact that the purpose of this film is to tear down all the awe-inspiring effects of 2001. The sequel simply fails to fascinate and awe us like the original did. - 50
Variety
In Peter Hyams’ hands [working from a novel by Arthur C. Clarke], the HAL mystery is the most satisfying substance of the film and handled the best. Unfortunately, it lies amid a hodge-podge of bits and pieces.
