A film
review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net
By all
accounts, both the director (Scott
Derrickson) and star (Keanu Reeves)
of this 2008 film are fans of its 1951 precursor. So what went wrong? At what
point did this initially promising remake lose its way? After all, Robert Wise's science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, is far
from a perfect motion picture. Parts of the movie are contrived and there are
gaps in logic and common sense. That being said, it's a powerful and compelling
motion picture with something specific to say about the human condition. The
new version, while admittedly addressing aspects of the first that date it,
opens new holes, some of which are more problematic. Worse, it lacks the simple
elegance and intelligence of the earlier film, and employs special effects and
pointless action scenes to replace passages of dialogue.
A
successful remake has a difficult path to traverse. It must honor the original
while at the same time bringing something new, interesting, and intelligent to
the project. The Day the Earth Stood
Still fails a little in both categories. Too often, the need to be a
spectacle trumps the desire to be smart and thought-provoking, and this works
to the film's detriment. The original The
Day the Earth Stood Still was like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. This movie feels too
much like a '90s/'00s generic disaster feature. Okay, The Empire State Building
remains intact and the Statue of Liberty is still hoisting her torch, but let's
just say that the Giants and Jets are going to need new homes.
Klaatu
(Keanu Reeves) arrives on Earth with the giant robot Gort in tow. His vehicle
of choice is a giant, pulsating sphere which parks in New York's Central Park.
Before Klaatu can intone, Take Me to Your
Leader to the greeting party headed by Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), he has been shot
and is on his way to an undercover medical lab for surgery. The operation
reveals that, under a protective layer of placenta-like material, is Keanu
Reeves. He has a job to do, which includes making a speech to all the leaders
of the world, and no one - especially not Secretary of Defense Jackson (Kathy Bates) - is going to stop him.
In 1951,
Klaatu came to Earth to offer a grim prognostication for the human race if we
continued pursuing the insane strategy of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).
In 2008, Klaatu's beef is global warming. He succinctly states his case for
genocide: The planet is too valuable to allow its indigenous human population
to destroy it. Better that they be eliminated so it can survive rather than
allowing them to destroy it and themselves with it. Either way, after all,
mankind is dead.
The Day the Earth Stood Still opens strongly, with a credible
enactment of how such a first contact might occur and a vivid introduction of
Klaatu and Gort. Some of the ideas surrounding Klaatu's stay in the medical
facility are also interesting. The film veers off course during its second half
with clichéd character building
sequences, pointless pyrotechnics, and a lot of running around in the backwoods
of a New Jersey that looks suspiciously like British Columbia. The ending is a
bit of an anti-climax and lacks the ominous and downbeat warning of its predecessor.
There's a
kid in this movie, just as there was in the first one. Here, he's the step-son
of Dr. Benson and is played by Will and Jada's son, 10-year old Jaden Smith. My complaints are about
the character, Jacob, not Smith's portrayal of him. This child is a source of
frequent irritation. It's as if he was written with a checklist in mind of all
the annoying things 10-year old kids do in movies. He's not just a stereotype;
he's an infuriating stereotype. His arc is equally predictable - he starts out
the film as the stepson of the woman he calls Helen but, by the end, they have
bonded and she is Mom. Along the way,
he's on hand to do things like phone the military and tell them Klaatu's
location.
Keanu
Reeves is a good choice to play the implacable world-killer. The low-key,
largely emotionless actor imbues Klaatu with an alien quality. Mr. Spock would
appreciate the character's cold logic as he discusses why the human race's time
is up. Jennifer Connelly has the thankless role of the sidekick (at least she's
a scientist, not a secretary). Hopefully, she got a nice paycheck. John Cleese makes the film's biggest
impression in what amounts to a one-scene cameo. He presents an impassioned
case for why the human race should be given a second chance, then suggests
Helen use something other than logic to persuade Klaatu. This opens up a lot of
interesting possibilities about where the movie could have gone but elects not
to go.
Mention
must be made of Klaatu barada nicto,
which has become a cult science fiction phrase over the years. Remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still without it
would be like remaking Star Wars without May
the Force Be with You or Star Trek without Live Long and Prosper. According to the filmmakers, Klaatu barada nicto is in The Day the Earth Stood Still, [Blogger:
Klaatu says it when Gort comes to rescue him after he’s been shot] but it is
drowned out by the overactive soundtrack. Regardless, it's inaudible and so
might just as well have been left out of the movie. The film does a little
better with other nods to the original, such as scenes involving a sea of
tombstones and a blackboard equation, and the re-use of some of Bernard
Herrmann's music.
If one
ignores the fact that The Day the Earth
Stood Still is a remake, it still falls short of expectations. There's too
little drama and tension and Gort's eventual transformation into a lethal cloud
makes for a less-than-thrilling climax. Perhaps the most frustrating thing
about the production is that there would appear to be considerable room to
update the story and, while some of that is done, it is largely a wasted
opportunity. Remaking a movie is easy. Engineering a good remake is difficult.
One key quality that separates the two is inspiration, and that's a
characteristic not to be found in 2008's The
Day the Earth Stood Still. [Berardinelli’s rating: ** out of 4 stars]
Labels:
alien-invasion, drama, sci-fi, thriller
Blogger's comment: There's a chilling message in this film. Natural systems exist in balance, but humans stress to the limit every natural system we touch, due to the business profit motive. Unless we change, and that's unlikely, we will end up destroying our natural environment.
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