CastKeanu Reeves
Jennifer Connelly
Jaden Smith
Jon Hamm
John Cleese
Kathy Bates
Brandon T. Jackson
James Hong
Screenwriter
David Scarpa
Director
Scott Derrickson
Running Time
103m 29s
The Day the Earth Stood Still is 20th Century Fox’s contemporary reinvention of its 1951 classic. Klaatu, an alien who arrives on our planet, triggers a global upheaval. As governments and scientists race to unravel the mystery behind the visitor’s appearance, a woman and her young stepson get caught up in his mission – and come to understand the ramifications of Klaatu calling himself a “friend to the Earth.” (20th Century Fox)
It was kind of dopey and not very good. That I liked it at all was mostly Jennifer Connelly's presence, if you don't share my affection for her or any actor in the movie consider it 1 star. It was the first film I'd seen in a long time, I can't remember the last one, where I had not been able to read reviews beforehand because I suppose they didn't allow advance press screenings which should have told me something. At least it wasn't more than two hours long. The makers didn't really try to make it good, which is the really weird thing about it. It was not made intelligently, there's so much wrong with it it's difficult to really cover everything. [Spoilers] Klaatu came to deliver the bad news at the UN but he just didn't do it. With that amount of power and supposed intelligence why not, he said they were unable to stop him but he just gave up and only really told a few people about why he was there. The lie detector scene, the operator says he's going to ask him a series of questions to calibrate the machine. He asks one question to which he gets a yes/no response but the next two he doesn't and just carries on without the machine being properly calibrated. Then when he attacks the operator no one seems to be monitoring the room. When the power to all machines goes and the earth stands still, surely planes and helicopters would fall from the skies which would be the most spectacular thing to show but they don't and then they have supertankers stopped dead but they're ships on the water they would drift, it would take miles for them to stop moving. There's a stupidity there, no subtlety, no intelligence, no cleverness behind it. The kid thought they were dangerous and wanted the aliens to be killed but soon after he saw one destroy two helicopters he suddenly changed his mind, that's crazy! The US military name Gort which I can only think was to explain why he has a name in any planned toys. The product placement which undoubtedly is in lots of things but it jarred more here simply because there was nothing else to distract me. I don't remember Klaatu killing anyone in the first film I think his species were essentially pacifists who had placed the robots in ultimate charge of everything so it was really odd seeing him kill which undermines the whole point of us being the bad guys. John Cleese's character explains people change when faced with a crisis which is a pretty obvious point but apparently hadn't occurred to "superbeing" Klaatu. You see the robot when he emerges to defend Klaatu who is then taken away and it seems ages before you see it again when it's being attacked. There's no discussion of what to do or examining the robot it's just attacked by drone aircraft, led by some guy in army fatigues some place which seems to have no relation to anything else. There's no discussion of who shot Klaatu and no one seems too worried about firing the first shot in a intergalactic war. They could have just done a sequel to the original which ended with Klaatu giving a warning to the human race so it could have been "The Day The Earth Stood Still 2: Times Up" or remade it more closely and if it had been successful then done a sequel which would have been essentially a big fight. The original is far far better probably a 4 or 5 star sci-fi classic.
