Movie Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still
Twentieth Century Fox Film Stars Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly
Dec 11, 2008
It's not surprising that Hollywood has gone remake-happy, considering that an average movie costs around $100 million these days. Updating a proven hit takes out much of the guesswork and risk. From an artistic perspective, sometimes an update can stand alongside, or even surpass, its predecessor.
And then there's The Day the Earth Stood Still, a crass attempt to modernize the McCarthy era B-movie. While the 1951 film starring Michael Rennie was a parable of Cold War warmongering, Scott Derrick's remake tarts things up with an environmental message. This time the godlike alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) is there to warn us that we're destroying the planet. David Scarpa's screenplay packs in the Biblical images in an attempt to build resonance in this doomsday tale.
"It's like the ark," one character says about mysterious spheres that vacuum up local wildlife.
"And you know what comes next?" responds another. "The flood."
Keanu Reeves Stars in The Day the Earth Stood Still
The biggest problem with this movie is its lead actor. As Klaatu, Reeves makes a pretty good alien. However, it's when he has to act human that he runs into trouble. He delivers his lines in that wooden monotone familiar to anyone who's sat through Dracula or Point Break, and to hell with any kind of emotional delivery or development. An introductory scene is a complete waste of time, since Reeves' lack of emotional involvement saps the sequence of any tension.
The audience winces on behalf of co-star Jennifer Connelly (as a sympathetic scientist) who strains to develop any rapport during her scenes with Reeves. Thank goodness the script didn't call for her to get intimate with him; that would pushed this flick into unintended comedy.
Veteran thespians John Cleese (playing a scientist trying to convince Klaatu that humanity can be saved) and Kathy Bates (as a troubled Secretary of Defense) do what they can with their respective roles, which ain't much. Jaden Smith (Will Smith's son, forging his own career as an actor) is stuck in a pointless subplot about a boy who still mourns his lost father.
The only character that actually improves on the original is Gort, the laser-eyed robot. It alone develops any sense of menace over the course of the movie, and the way it springs into action in the 3rd act is one of the film's few shocks.
Pointless Remake
Turning a 1950's cult classic into An Inconvenient Truth with killer robots is a cute concept, but the execution is lousy. Characters selectively act dumb to further the plot, and actions occur without any explanation (such as how Klaatu can don a suit without removing a pair of electrodes from his temples). The flick almost sags beneath the weight of its portentiousness, but gives short shrift to any notions of character or story development.
If you want the same effect, go rent the 1951 original and then follow it up with An Inconvenient Truth: you'll save yourself some money, and be even more entertained. 3/10
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