Movie Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still

Keanu Reeves must be stopped. No, not Keanu Reeves' character in The Day The Earth Stood Still. Keanu Reeves. The Actor. Someone must stop him from trying to act. Immediately.

What can I say about The Day The Earth Stood Still? It's not very good. And when one inevitably compares it to its 1951 predecessor, it becomes even more clear that the 2008 version is really a steaming pile of a movie.

The problems with The Day The Earth Stood Still run beyond Neo's inability to act out emotions beyond the emotional range of a toaster. They involve a weakly written storyline that waters down and distracts from the the original 1951 story, the addition of a really annoying tag-along kid (don't annoying kids make all movies better?), and the inclusion of heavy handed environmentalist and anti-government messages. I get that the original 1951 version was an anti-war movie, and that's fine. It was done well and prompted people to think about important issues that were taboo at the time. That's avant garde. Global warming is not avant garde. Nothing in this movie is avant garde. It's gauche.

The 2008 version of this film tells the story of a young Al Gore, who comes to this planet from a distant galaxy to fight the evils of global warming before beginning his search for Manbearpig. Apparently the only way to end said global warming is to kill everyone on Earth. He's essentially an evil Captain Planet.

Because the total destruction of all humanity is being done "for the environment," it is a noble pursuit that is only being thwarted by the evil and incompetent US Government. (Before getting offended, please note that the movie takes extra precautions to ensure that it's only the US Government that is evil and incompetent. We are assured all other foreign governments are kind and compassionate.) Enter the single mom with bratty kid, let Keanu and John Cleese do some complex theoretical physics calculations together on a chalkboard (someone kill me!), and bada-bing, bada-boom, you have yourself a movie.

Overall, the first 1/4 of this movie was bearable, building up tension and making itself a decent, if not slow, thriller. Then we meet all of the actors, get into the story, and the movie fails. For having a little early tension and a couple of decent special effects, it's earned itself a couple of Smiths, but that doesn't mean I would recommend anyone actually subject themselves to it.

SCORING: I give The Day The Earth Stood Still 2 Agent Smiths out of a possible 5.