Starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith
Directed by Scott Derrickson
The Day The Earth Stood Still is a cautionary tale to the nth degree. While in past films, our haphazard treatment of the planet we call home has led to nature attacking us with storms, earthquakes, floods and ice, Day presents a more direct threat. We’ve been watched for years as we evolved from a primitive, warlike race into a primitive, warlike race with better toys. In the original film of the same name, the message from a visiting alien was firm and simple. Change or die at our hands. In this re-imagining, the message is shortened to DIE. We are here to save the Earth … from you.
Keanu Reeves plays a stone faced Klaatu, unaccustomed to his human body and dismayed by the erratic and destructive nature of human kind, straight-man-ing his way through this film with no sign of emotion whatsoever. This leaves the bulk of the feeling to be conveyed by Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, a scientist who sees the government making all the wrong moves and aids Klaatu in evading them. Unfortunately, Connelly is not allowed to smile in this film (big change for her) so her looks are confined to concerned and … emphatically concerned. Sooo … for emotion we fall back to Connelly’s onscreen son played by Jaden Smith, who seems to be the only character allowed to emote! Connelly is given a moment or two but it seems she’s been reserved to play opposite Reeves, who is barely acting at all, or rather acting like he’s not acting at all. It gets confusing. This leaves little Jaden to steal the show, proving he’s got the chops for bigger and better things. As it stands, his character is incredibly unsympathetic as he calls his mother by her first name, ignores her every request and insists Klaatu would be better off as a smear on the pavement. Nice kid.
The government spends the majority of the film trying to destroy the invader’s glowing orb and dismantle the eight-story G.O.R.T. robot (who by the way does little to nothing in the film). Klaatu spends the bulk of his time fleeing the government while his machines begin their destruction of the earthlings via a cloud of robots that eat anything in their path like a swarm of techno locusts. You are left sitting in your seat wondering why the hell they keep remaking movies that are perfect to begin with.
Cinematically, Day offers nothing jaw dropping or highly original. We’ve seen an orb shaped alien thing in Sphere (still a painful memory), a human alien doing amazing things in Starman (oddly, slightly less painful) and countless cloudy destroyers as seen in Fantastic Four 2, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Mummy and even The Never Ending Story (which had edgier scenes than this film.) The effects are just fine, but it is a case of nothing new under the sun and no new way of presenting it. In fact, this is the theme of the film. The acting is fine, but what they are being told to convey is pretty flat. We know all of these actors can bring more to the table. Even Reeves, who gets lambasted more often than not, can at the very least be fun to watch. No such luck here.
With a one-note story to play out, nothing will save you from catching some Z’s unless you’ve got one of those theaters where they cut the heat and freeze you into paying attention. I’m sure it will come as no shock when I recommend you hit this link and buy the original film, recently re-released. It has a better story, more likable characters, remains intelligent throughout and is vastly superior to this new school, rung out, bleached version … which is funny to say when compared to a black and white film. Fox has sucked all the color out of The Day The Earth Stood Still. IRONY!!
2 1/2 out of 5
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