Due Date

2001: A Space Odyssey is back!

Dum! Dum! Dum!...DA-DUM! It's a testament to director Stanley Kubrick's lasting influence on popular culture that those bars, formerly known as "Also Sprach Zarathustra," are commonly known as "that 2001 music" (unless you're a wrestling fan and know it as Ric Flair's theme, but the "Nature Boy's" use of it is intended as a reference to 2001 rather than Richard Strauss).

And now you can hear that music once more in fully restored six-track stereo, as 2001: A Space Odyssey makes its way back to screens just in time for its sell-by date. The picture is also fully restored, but fear not -- despite some ugly rumors a few years back that computer-generated special effects would be added, nothing new has been inserted or subtracted, not even the legendary missing 17 minutes that Kubrick himself chopped out shortly after the film's premiere was met with derision. The colors now look brighter than ever before, grounding it somewhat more clearly in the '60s, and the 70mm print makes clear details that weren't always apparent before, like the 10-step directions on the zero-gravity toilet, or the national flags emblazoned on the satellites. If you've only seen this film on a TV set, you really haven't experienced it properly; the overall effect is not only in the small details, but in the biggest picture. Without a sense of the vastness of outer space, the epic scope of the tale, which attempts like few before it or since to detail the complete evolution of humankind, simply doesn't sink in.

And yet the film's not as ponderous as detractors seem to think. The entire space station/moon sequence is full of humor, albeit a particularly dry kind that British viewers would more quickly pick up on, especially with the presence of gifted Anglo comedian Leonard Rossiter as a Russian scientist. William Sylvester's Dr. Haywood Floyd (spelled Heywood in the books) often gets short shrift -- despite having perhaps the most dialogue-heavy role in the film, he isn't listed on the poster or even in the new press kit -- but his wry performance is a highlight, of both the film and Sylvester's career.

So now that we've reached 2001, how dated does the film look? More than it once did, perhaps: The planets seen from space look flat, the women's hairdos are très retro and the landscape shots that conclude the too-long stargate sequence near the end look more than ever like retouched Grand Canyon images. Pan Am no longer exists, nor does the Soviet Union, and if there were a pay phone on the international space station it's doubtful calls would cost only $1.70. On the other hand, the apes and spaceships still look good, the antigravity effects are as amazing as ever, and the film did correctly predict phone cards and flat-screen TVs.

Ignore the date, and the film still astonishes -- it's like a religious experience for those who believe only in science. But don't take our word for it; it's also Tom Hanks' favorite movie.