The Day The Earth Stood Still
Screen Rant reviewsThe Day the Earth Stood Still
You know , I can infer the desire to remakeThe Day the Earth Stood Still … I really can . The original film had a great concept , it ’s put up the trial run of time , and the enticement to revisit it with today ’s ocular effect must have been overwhelming .
But one of the first rules of remakes is : You do n’t remake classic films .
You do n’t remakeGone With the Wind , you do n’t remakeCasablancaand you do n’t even essay to remakeCitizen Kane . It ’s a lose proposition - remaking that work are few and far between , and often they ’re based on vague or badly made originals .
Now that I ’ve get you think that my entire review will be based on comparing this new version to the original , countenance me severalise you : This version does n’t even work as a stand alone movie . This could have been titledAlien Retributionand it still would n’t have been any sound .
If you ’re not conversant with the story , it basically goes like this : An foreign space vehicle suddenly appear , an alien comes out to greet us ( take after by very large protective robot ) , is mistakenly burgeon forth , question by the U.S. government , get away , is befriend by a woman and her Word , and it is revealed that ( and here is where the plot disport from the original ) he is here to demolish humanity in rescript to keep the Earth .
The film start up interestingly enough - with Keanu Reeves as a mountain explorer in 1928 , apparently up in the Himalayas . He ’s alone and there ’s a moderately good blizzard bodge , and he come across an ice covered Earth about 10 feet in diameter . He chips aside at the ice , and something happens to him which mould the fundament for how he ( or someone who looks like him ) returns to world present day .
Present twenty-four hour period , the always beautiful Jennifer Connelly plays college prof Helen Benson . She has a Word , played by Jaden Smith , but I ’ll get to him later . Union agents soon come along and drag in her away with virtually no explanation to join a bunch of other similarly clueless scientist and engineers . Soon they are informed of the target head towards Earth , apparently set to jar with a very salient city and cause 1000000 of end .
Of course it does n’t dash but land . It is a gigantic sphere that looks like it bear spin liquids / gas . From it emerges a humanoid alien creature , who approaches Benson very easy and cautiously , expand its handwriting lento in what is obviously a handshake . This is when he is shot by a nervous soldier ( who , I assume , had never seenClose Encounters of the Third Kind ) and candidly , I found the shot entirely contrived . At least in the original the foreign ( Klaatu ) was bear a gimmick which on the spur of the moment sprang open in the coming into court of a arm . Here it seemed as if the writer state " oh , here ’s where the stranger gets shot , let ’s just get it done . "
Keanu Reeves in ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’
A mammoth automaton ( Gort ) emerges from the ship and commences to ruin all weapons within line of sight - he only hold back when Klaatu orders him to ( it was hard to make out but I believe this is where they tuck the famous line " Klaatu Barada Nikto " ) .
Klaatu ( Keanu Reeves ) is learn to a secure aesculapian quickness to attempt to facilitate him , and there is actually some nerveless conceptual stuff going on here with the alien being side of thing . Soon he ’s heal and is shakily adapt to his human trunk . Kathy Bates diddle Secretary of Defense and is not wearing kid gloves in her approach to have information out of the apparently human alien .
It becomes unmistakable that this Klaatu has powers over electricty and more , and he before long turn tail with the help of Benson . She carry on to conceive he is here for the good of humankind and is compulsive to help him rest off from authorities long enough to get him in front of the United Nations to come up to the world . As it turn out he is n’t here to save humankind , he ’s here to save the satellite Earthfromhumanity .
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 science fiction film directed by Scott Derrickson. Starring Keanu Reeves as the alien Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Helen Benson, the film is a modern reimagining of the 1951 classic. Klaatu arrives on Earth to deliver a message that will affect the entire human race, prompting a scramble to understand his intentions amidst global tension.
The plan is to wipe human beings from the major planet because"only a handful of planet in the universe can affirm complex life . “I literally express joy out loudly when I find out that line - so in orderliness to lay aside a rarefied planet that can sustain complex lifespan , his " federation " of foreigner is going to wipe out the most complex life form on the planet ? ? What place an ecphonesis point on the jest is when we ’re point tons of spheres all over the world call for specimens of animate being and insect life history presumptively to whip them off the major planet ( just in case ? ) . So snake and squids are worth save , but humans are n’t .
The best thing in this movie was watching Jennifer Connelly on sieve - she was swell in her purpose . John Cleese has a small-scale and amazingly serious cameo in the film which work as well . Reeves was … well … Reeves . There was n’t much he could do with the part as given , playing it very cold and unemotionally . Jaden Smith ’s character however , vex the living heck out of me . He looks like he ’s about nine year old and he toy this incredibly snarky , back - talking character to his ( as it turns out ) step - mother , Helen . With every substitution between him and her I was torn between require to slap some parenting horse sense into her or some discipline into him . If they had cast a 14 - 16 yr old I would have bought it , but a kid that youthful with that much lip ? Not in my star sign .
combine that with the fact that later on in the picture show we ’re suppose to feel compassion for him when he finally " turns around . " He either was n’t given the dialog to do it or just does n’t have the act chops to pull it off . That ’s a major problem with the photographic film - Outside of Benson , I did n’t really care about anyone or what might happen to them . I felt disordered from the film and it just never really engaged me . For all the visual burden in the picture show , the overall feel of the film is fairly monotonous and boring .
Then there ’s the whole " kill the humans to lay aside the Earth " content - frankly I find out that ludicrous . Here ’s a supposedly highly evolved race that plain has no trouble with just off all of humanity . For what ? Do they design on populating Earth themselves ? Replace us with " skillful " multitude who know how to take care of the planet ?
I intend in earnest , they should just be patient - if we ’re that close to self - wipeout just come back in a few thousand years . Does anyone really believe that world can actually pollute the satellite to end ? If anything the worry should be that we ’ll make it uninhabitable for ourselves - give the Earth 10,000 twelvemonth without us and it ’ll be back to a lush paradise on its own .
There are other things as well , if Klaatu ’s true alien appearance would be " frightening " ( as he stated in the movie ) , one would assume it is completly alien - look - so why is Gort humanoid in appearance ? Then there ’s a " undercover agent " who has been on Earth for 70 years , who Klaatu confabulate with before his last determination to destroy us . They guy tells him about how he ’s get to love humanity , but we wo n’t deepen our ways . In view of how the film ends , this end up pull in absolutely zero sense . There are also a span of rather jarringly obvious product placements , and the ending iscompletelyambiguous .
In the original Klaatu left us with a warning … basically : " Get your act together and stop being so violent . We ’ll be watching . " Here , Klaatu finally stops the demolition , but he just … leaf . How far will his message of why he come get ? Will anyone hear it ? Did he decide human beings is so noble that they do n’t wish what we do to the planet any more ? Why did n’t he listen to the old guy he talked to before ? Why did n’t the hombre make a better face for humanness ?
I swear I expected Al Gore to have a cameo in this flick at some level . When Benson rescues Klaatu , my first thought when they get to her automobile was " good thing she does n’t drive an SUV ! " Despite this , the cinema never has the guts to go all the way and employ the term " global warming " or say " you ’re destroy the environment with your pollution . "
The Day the Earth Stood Stillis all about the visual event . Theyarecool , but I take more than that from a plastic film so as to call it " good . " As a matter of fact , for all its spectacle , the film is jolly categoric and boring .
So if you ’re into seeing lots of cool CGI on the big screen - and plot and character reference do n’t mean that much to you , by all means , go check this out . On the other manus if those thing DO count to you , go lease the original and revel that instead .
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 scientific discipline fabrication movie direct by Scott Derrickson . Starring Keanu Reeves as the exotic Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly as Dr. Helen Benson , the moving-picture show is a modern reimagining of the 1951 classic . Klaatu arrives on Earth to deliver a message that will regard the entire human raceway , prompting a scamper to empathise his intentions amidst world-wide tension .
