The Day the Earth Stood Still. An exciting title for a movie created a half-century ago about our penchant for violence and a sinister love affair with Miley Cyrus headlines [wait, what?]… Moral of the story: Let’s all be good or the interstellar space consortium won’t let us in to the club.
Enter Keanu Reeves. As a socially inept alien:
“Whoa bro… Like, the Earth is special, and, like, all you humans are trouble ‘cuz you want to mess it up.”
Enter Jennifer Connelly. As a scientist with a widow-production bastard step-child. (This is true, I’m not creative enough to conjure that character struggle out of thin air):
“But, like, we can change. I won’t actually demonstrate how we can do it because that would require actually creating a plot mechanism to demonstrate that humans are capable of denying the fundamental issues that have raged on our planet since we learned we could hurt each other by hurling rocks at one another, but seriously… Change is totally our thing.”
And sayeth the Klaatu/Keanu:
“Oh. I see, like, your bastard step-son [sorry, I'm just enjoying that phrase too much] is, like, capable of hugging you because I, like, scared him and stuff. You can change. Good times. I shall sacrifice myself.”
-Fin-
There. I just handed you the movie. Don’t waste your time. It’s a B-movie in an A-movie’s clothes – and even that might be pushing it. Some of the special effects are movie-of-the-week quality (although the disintegrating truck is cool; but that was on the movie’s trailer so it doesn’t count). All this movie needed to save it was some sort of actual, believable method to show that humans really can change. The truth is that an alien visit might prompt us to work together, get over our differences quickly, and go star-hopping. But it’s not in the movie, so the whole thing falls apart. There’s really nothing redemptive about the whole movie – no standout performances, no saving moment of awesome visual effects. It’s just a dud. Don’t waste your time.
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