The Day The Earth Stood Still, nobody really noticed. You know why? Because it already happened once. And the first time it was really interesting. When it happened again, everybody yawned, said “hey, look, another crappy remake of a classic sci-fi movie, snore.”

 Everybody but me, apparently. I gave it a chance. Even when everyone else (including excellent and respected film reviewers) said the same thing even after they’d seen the thing, I still held out hope. Because Keanu Reeves was playing Klaatu. How the heck could that be a bad thing? I know not everyone likes Keanu Reeves, but I do. I’ve seen few films he’s been in I didn’t like. Until now.

 Vince, buddy, you were right. Two weeks ago, in episode 5 of our podcast, you said classics like this shouldn’t be remade, because there’s no way to make them better. The Day The Earth Stood Still informed all the sci-fi that came after it, in storytelling, in cinematography, and especially in score. And the only reason to remake a movie is to make it better the second time, you said. I disagreed.

Then I saw this movie. I now take back everything I said.

It’s been out a while now and I’m terribly late writing this review, but I felt the need to weigh-in, mostly to say that I’ve recovered my senses now and although this rarely happens, almost everyone who’s reviewed this movie is right: it only got made to make a lot of money, there’s nothing intelligent about it, the characterization is terribly week, Klaatu’s motives are entirely flawed and contradictory– basically, a bunch of elements from the original The Day The Earth Stood Still were thrown into a movie with the same title that absolutely should not have been called that.

For Klaatu, the fate the Earth is much more important than the fate of humanity. Why? Who knows. His only explanation is that very few planets in the universe are capable of supporting complex life, and therefore we cannot be allowed to destroy our own planet. But what does he care? We’re not messing with his planet, and if we destroy our own, we can’t go out into the universe and hurt anything else. I don’t get it.

The original Klaatu was worried about us unstable humans getting technologically advanced enough to take our Cold War out into space. That was a reasonable thing to be concerned about. But this guy just doesn’t make any sense.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen the movie and still plan to, don’t read past this point.

Gort looked cool, albeit entirely CGI. But like most of the rest of the stuff that was grabbed from the original, he served little purpose. What’s the point of having a giant robot if he’s just going to turn into a bunch of robot bugs and kill everyone??? I was also disappointed that Klaatu never says “Gort, barada nikto” in the film. Were they worried that would cheese the film up too much? I wasn’t.

The original had a very clear message and there was so much character depth it didn’t feel preachy. This movie was terribly preachy AND didn’t have a clear message, which is almost an impressive feat, but wasn’t intentional. The producers couldn’t decide what was most important, preaching against violence or preaching against polution and global warming. I’ll give them credit for never mentioning polution and global warming, even though it’s obvious that’s what the movie was about, but then why spend so much time showing humans trying to kill things they can’t? These humans are stupid and deserve to die, much like the main characters in War of the Worlds.

If you saw this movie and liked it, be sure to see the original. I’d bet money it’ll change your mind.

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

Tags: Keanu Reeves, Movies, remake, Sci-Fi, The Day the Earth Stood Still

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 6:30 am and is filed under Capt Logan, Movies, Sci-Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.