Keanu Reeves Day the Earth Stood Still review

Put on your serious face for a message movie that rocks

Dec 12, 2008

Keanu manages to look serious all the way through this novel message movie

Under Director Scott Derrickson, the ever-cute Keanu Reeves struggles to keep a straight face while delivering deeply meaningful and potentially scary lines: "If you all die, the planet lives...". Everyone in this film gets to practice their 'looking serious' faces. Occasionally, Keanu manages to make his 'looking serious' face resemble the 'Blue Steel' look perfected by Ben Stiller's Zoolander.

Oscar-Grabbing

Keanu's latest outing has, clearly, not been designed to stretch his acting range to Oscar-grabbing proportions. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, he plays a similar character to the Keanu we all know and love from a series of unmemorable movies. In this one however, he does seem to be a little more deeply stoned than in Bill & Ted. And, possibly, the Matrix. This time out he's called 'Klaatu'.

So far then, nothing much new to report. The movie is alright in a ‘Meh!’ kind of way. This is a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. Michael Rennie took the Klaatu role in that over-talky turkey. Directed by Robert Wise, you can bet it'll be looked at with pangs of nostalgia now. But that was in the black and white days, when message films had to wear their hearts on their sleeves. These days you can hide the message if it gets in the way of the real action.

Love Interest

Keanu’s an alien who has come to save the earth from humanity. Jennifer Connelly would be the love interest if there was one, but you know what, there isn’t really. Keanu’s character doesn’t do love. He’s a bit of a Mr Spock, emotionally speaking. Or so it seems. He may, according to the 1928-set opening sequence, be a clone. Can he overcome his cloneliness and learn to love people before he destroys the world?

And remember, one of the people he has to learn to love is Jacob Benson, a troubled but attractive moppet played by Will Smith’s son, Jaden. If the future of the human race depends on an alien being won over by this little charmster, then we’re in trouble. The audience may be split on this issue. Teddy Bear lovers and pre-adolescent schoolgirls could be taken in by his curly locks. Some people, however, may find themselves absent-mindedly reaching for the small automatic pistol they wished they owned. So there is some tension. Go on, guess what happens at the end.

Kathy Bates is brilliant as Regina “I speak for the President of the United States” Jackson. You hate her the minute she hits the screen, and you keep on hating her. That’s acting, that is. She wants lock Klaatu away and interrogate him in cruel and unusual ways. Regina's the baddie. The actual President never shows up. He's too busy sorting out the credit crunch to deal with world-threatening aliens.

Dust Cloud

There are special effects as well. But let’s face it, everyone has special effects now. The big robot, Gort, is well realised. The dust cloud eating buildings is pretty good also. But what the hey, we’ve all seen cities crumble before. You kind of expect that. That's another resounding 'Meh!' then.

The overall look of the movie seems to lurch from 21st Century, state of the art CGI to more atmospherically misty 1950s 'spooky'. This may be a hat-tipping towards the film's predecessor, which is polite, but begs the question "Why bother?".

This is a definite message movie. The message is that we’ve got to go Green or everyone dies. At the same time, though, there are lots of other very strong and compelling messages served up in the most blatant manner imaginable. These are: Eat at corporate hamburger chains, wear mid-price watches, drive Japanese brand cars, and drink soda pop – lots of soda pop.

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