The Day the Earth Stood Still

In 1951, The Day The Earth Stood Still was powerful, combining alien science fiction with war movie action and a dramatic intellectual twist. It truly was well rounded. The Day The Earth Stood Still's 2008 envisioning, starring Keanu Reeves (Klaatu) and Jennifer Connelly (Dr. Benson), is an exercise in mediocrity. Klaatu is a member of a superior race many light years from our own. Those beings are the peacekeepers of the universe and Earth is setting itself up to be a major problem. Travelling to our planet, Klaatu and his ever-powerful robot Gort are on a mission to inform Earthlings that we must change our ways or humans will be eliminated. Naturally we fail to listen, killing Klaatu in the process. It's up to Dr. Benson to utter a secret phrase to Gort that disengages his destructive mandate. As cool as this sounds, unfortunately the plot relies far too heavily on the innocence and naiveté of the original film's era. Even utilizing subtle updates fails to help one look past the obvious silliness of the situation: an extra-terrestrial unexpectedly comes to Earth, adopts our physical appearance and the English language, and we all stare dumbfounded. Despite all of this, the alien is shot by a bullet, bleeds like us and is responsive to our medical treatment. It's just too much of a stretch in this day and age. Derrikson horrifically struggles to retrofit an interesting, time-sensitive script into today's high-tension action genre, overloaded with CGI just to keep people in their seats. Even the DVD treatment fails. Boring extra such as flat deleted scenes, the CGI process of creating Gort and talks about alien life are about as eventful as it gets. No wonder Klaatu was supposed to kill us off.