Day the Earth Stood Still, The
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a remake of a 1951 sci-fi film about aliens who come to Earth to destroy humans. This film was somewhat popular back in the 50’s but didn’t seem to generate the same feelings with the public today.
The story is about an alien, named Klaatu, who comes to earth, in the form of Keanu Reeves, to set off a chain of events that will destroy man-kind in order to preserve the planet Earth. Along the way he meets a scientist, played by Jennifer Connelly, who tries to convince him that humans can change and pleads with him to give us another chance to mend our ways and start respecting our planet.
Even though we all get sick of remakes, I like how this film has been remade and is still pertinent to the events that are taking place right now. Conservation and the “green” mentality is on the rise and this film is very timely, perhaps even more so than it was back in 1951. I didn’t see the 1951 version, but I can only assume that much of the original story didn’t change and Hollywood was pushing the “Save the Planet” message back then but it wasn’t cool enough to stick. I like the overall message, but I do think there were some issues that kept it from being a really good movie.
The first problem I have is that I don’t care about ANY of the characters. I don’t care about Reeves because he’s an alien and he can take care of himself. Reeves is a fine actor and although he gets a lot of flack for taking parts where he lacks emotion I think that very fact was an advantage for him in this film. And I didn’t care for Connelly or her kid. The acting was average and they tried to give the characters a background story but I found it to be a lame attempt. I really think that if either one of these characters would have died a tragic death I wouldn’t have blinked an eye.
The second problem I had was the lack of resolve. The whole time I felt Keanu was telling us that we’re destroying the planet and the aliens have to destroy us, but when he is finally convinced that we are ok and they will let us live, the movie ends. You’d think they could give us an idea of how we’re destroying the planet or what we can do to save the planet, but there’s nothing. For four-fifths of the film he is set on a specific course and then he just changes and it’s over.
Overall I think this film had potential to deliver a good message but it just didn’t work. It was anti-climatic and the acting was average and fans of the original movie would probably be better off sticking to the classic version.
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