'The Day the Earth Stood Still' Movie Review

Granted, the original The Day the Earth Stood Still has funky effects in comparison to today's advances in computer animated graphics. And yes, the acting comes across as stilted in the 1951 sci-fi film directed by Robert Wise. But, again, that's only in comparison with contemporary standards. However, you can't argue that the message in the '51 film isn't still relevant. So why did it need to be remade? That's a good question and one that's not really answered even after watching director Scott Derrickson's 2008 remake.

Where the original film relied on dialogue to get the point across, this new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still leans heavily on large action set pieces. There's a batch of quieter moments in this '08 sci-fi film, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

As in the original film, Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and screenwriter David Scarpa (The Last Castle) work in an IMPORTANT MESSAGE (picture the words in flashing neon) amongst the chase scenes and other effects. Take care of our planet or else aliens will obliterate us and start over from scratch: it's not a bad point to pound home but it could have been delivered with a little more finesse…

The Story

Klaatu and his extraterrestrial sphere gently touch down in Central Park and of course the first thing we do by way of a greeting is to open fire and wound him. GORT, a huge metallic creature with a slit where eyes would be found on a human, emerges from the globe and quickly puts an end to our attack by emitting an irritating sound and some sort of electronic signal that makes weapons cease to work.

Dr. Helen Benson, a gorgeous scientist who's raising her deceased husband's son on her own, is the first human to reach Klaatu and the two instantly bond. This isn't a love at first sight thing – Derrickson wisely didn't go there with the story – but she does feel empathy for this stranger to our planet, and he seems to sense she's on his side.

After Secretary of Defense Jackson (played by Kathy Bates) makes it clear America's leaders want to do a little probing in secret on the unwilling Klaatu, Helen helps him escape and quickly learns the real reason he's come to Earth. With only a short time remaining before humans become extinct, Helen must convince Klaatu we aren't inherently bad. We can change and we are capable of, when push comes to shove, learning from our mistakes.

The Cast

Keanu Reeves makes a good alien. Reeves hasn't fit a role this perfectly since his Matrix days. Playing an emotionless, logical creature from space, Reeves is completely believable and his performance is on par with Michael Rennie's Klaatu. Jennifer Connelly is more than just a pretty face as one of the most highly regarded scientists America has to offer. Since Klaatu's completely detached, Connelly has to carry the emotional load and this Oscar-winner's strong enough to handle the job.

The Bottom Line

The original film was all about how humans are going to bring about our own destruction by fighting amongst each other, with aggressions between warring countries ultimately causing humans to be wiped out. This time around Klaatu's visit is due to our mistreatment of the environment. Klaatu can't allow us to damage the Earth to the point it is no longer usable. We aren't the only life forms in the solar system and Earth isn't really our property. Apparently we're really poor renters and evicting us is the only way Earth can survive.

Derrickson and Scarpa did a decent job of setting up the story in the film's first half hour. The ship's arrival and the meetings between Klaatu, government officials, doctors and scientists are well played out. It's when the film gets into Helen's relationship with her stepson, Jacob (played by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith's son Jaden), and the subsequent interaction between Klaatu and Jacob that things go south. The Jacob character is extremely annoying and unnecessary. Everything he does is predictable, and unfortunately he's featured a great deal in the second half of the movie. Concentrating on just Klaatu and Helen would have alleviated the irritation of having to watch a paint-by-numbers child character carry forth the story.

Derrickson's decision to go with a unique spaceship rather than the classic round disc pays off big time. I also enjoyed the fact Derrickson decided to reuse the design of the original GORT. The technology behind this GORT flew right over my head, but that didn't really matter. He's the mechanism that'll bring about the end of civilization and that's really all I needed to understand. The science behind how he does it wasn't that important to me.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is the second film released in 2008 involving the killing of humans in order to save the environment. M Night Shyamalan's The Happening had a similar message and of the two, The Day the Earth Stood Still is infinitely more entertaining. At least in this film we can see what's killing off the population of New Jersey and New York (the special effects in The Day the Earth Stood Still are miles above Shyamalan's The Happening effect sequences). But unfortunately, as with Shyamalan's The Happening, The Day the Earth Stood Still fails to pack a punch. After wagging its finger at the audience, The Day the Earth Stood Still just sort of slinks off into the sunset.

GRADE: C

The Day the Earth Stood Still was directed by Scott Derrickson and is rated PG-13 for some sci-fi disaster images and violence.

Theatrical Release Date: December 12, 2008