The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

[Jesse]

I just saw the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It wasn't quite as bad as I'd expected it to be, but it wasn't very good either. The biggest problem is that they changed the lesson of the movie for no particular reason. In the original, it was "Humans are too violent". In the remake, it's "Humans are hurting the planet." -- which is a lesson I can get behind, certainly, but they didn't support it with the rest of the movie. Ironically, the movie's downfall is that they kept many aspects true to the original, most of which simply don't fit with the new moral. Further still, they actually went so far as to add new scenes which would've fit perfectly with the original theme of anti-war, but don't fit at all with the environmentalist theme.

For example:
- The Secretary of Defense captures Klaatu and tries to keep him for herself as a military advantage above other countries.
- The Army keeps attacking Gort, the robot.
- The old Asian man complains that humans are too violent.
And so on.

And then there were things that just didn't add anything to the movie:
Most obviously, Will Smith's son's character. He kept running around, complaining about everything, full of angst against his step-mom for no particular reason. One could argue that he contributed by befriending and convincing Klaatu not to destroy the humans -- however, between John Cleese's "We are at the breaking point; this is where we become great" speech and Jennifer Connelly's friendship, he seemed quite well convinced already.

Second, the death & resurrection scene. A police officer is about to apprehend Klaatu, so Klaatu makes a car rush into him, killing him instantly. Why? "He was delaying us." Klaatu is morally opposed to violence in all cases, no matter what. But since he's in a hurry, it's okay. Making it even worse, he goes through a very lengthy process of healing and resurrecting the cop that he just killed, delaying them even further. Why not just punch the cop and run? Less violent, less time wasted, same result.

And then there's what they did to Gort... it's a minor complaint, but they turned his name into an acronym for no particular reason: "Genetically Organized Robotic Technology". It's so forced that it must have come from the Cyborg Name Decoder. If they're going to mess with his name anyway, why cram a square peg into a round hole?


Ultimately, it was a passable movie. If I were a teenager, it would've blown me away with it's "deep" message and amazing special effects. But as an adult, it was mostly disappointing. Not enough depth to be a good story, not enough action to be a good thriller. It tried to do both, and utterly failed. I'd suggest passing this up and instead renting the original -- which had a solid plot, good acting, and a very potent message.