Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2085 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-09-11
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Russian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 111 minutes

Amazon.co.uk 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 repeatedly to promise that "something wonderful" is about to happen. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
DVD 9
French\Italian
English\Italian
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English French Italian
Dolby Digital 5.1
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Arabic\Bulgarian\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Romanian\Spanish

Synopsis
A team of American and Soviet astronauts travel in search of the lost ship Discovery as Cold War strife boils over back on Earth. A breathtaking if far less allegorical sequel to the sci-fi classic 2001 - A SPACE ODYSSEY.

Customer Reviews

Dated but interesting
"2010: The Year We Make Contact" is a fine representation of the second of Arthur C Clarke's Odyssey books. The production is a product of its time though with the Soviet Union still very much in existence and antagonism between East and West very much still alive. I don't believe that the movie suffers too much because of that specifically, more for the title I think - 2010 is a little too close to now and the combined space programmes of every country are too far off the technology for any realism.

Some good performances, John Lithgow as Walter Curnow for one and Bob Balaban as Dr Chandra are worthy of note. The Russian accents are pretty ropey despite a number of Russian actors, and Roy Scheider is a little wooden - take particular note of his fake laugh early in the movie whilst checking Discovery's orbit.

Not a bad movie, and while the movie is widescreen, the version I got was letterbox rather than anamorphic 16:9. Sound passable but uninspired and unexciting during the aerobraking manoeuver.

I'm not disappointed that I bought the movie as it is worth the pittance I paid for it. I would have liked anamorphic widescreen, DTS and a decent crop of DVD extras - then I would have given four stars rather than three (or the two and a half it is really worth!).

2010 the year we make contact
As a standalone SF film 2010 is good. As a follow up to 2001 it is a pale shadow of Kubrik's film, events at the end ot the twentith century show it to be a film of the cold war erra, it is workman like to its forbears stunning sweep from pre-history to a vision of mankinds imagened future. 2010 picks up the story of Dave Boweman,Hal and co and follows them to neat conclusion.
The story is well told and filmed,the efects support the story rather than being the story,as I said at the start; not a great film but a good film, and all the better for being on DVD.

My god, it's full of stars! Helen Mirren, Roy Scheider...
Peter Hyams takes the reins from the late great Stanley Kubrick in this adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's second 2000-series novel. Following the disappearance of Dave Bowman (reborn as a spectral space-child at the end of 2001), the apparent abandoning of the USS Discovery and the malfunction of the computer HAL, a joint Soviet-Western team is sent up to Jupiter to investigate the old spacecraft - while Dave Bowman begins to make his presence felt back on Earth. This sequel is far less surreal than the first film, but it has its fair share of great moments. The spacecrew reenact the Cold War on their voyage to Jupiter, and we meet an updated female version of the HAL-9000: SAL, who has a strangely intimate relationship with her nerdy creator. And the plot is far more comprehensible than the first film, which is no bad thing! Highly recommended for sci-fi buffs.