6:28pm Tuesday 16th December 2008
By Joanne Mace
The Day the Earth Stood Still (12A)
IT’S been a while since we had an alien-related “the end of the world is nigh” cinematic release so perhaps audiences will be flocking to check out this update of the 1951 sci-fi classic.
In what’s a masterstroke of casting to ability, Keanu Reeves plays the key creature Klaatu – a name which probably wasn’t as laugh-out-loud funny back then as it is now – who mysteriously arrives in, whaddya know, present day Manhattan along with a massive ball of glowing swirling stuff.
Aside from the predictability of cinematic alien invaders heading straight for the good old USA, there’s an equally predictable military response. And so assorted tanks, planes and soldiers surround the ball and shoot Klaatu as he reaches out a hand to make contact with scientist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). D’oh.
Helen is concerned about the official reaction to this event, and by the attitude of the US government’s head, Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates, whose dialogue is woeful). And so she decides to help Klaatu escape, later becoming further implicated in proceedings when she discovers just exactly why he has come to Earth. Having heard Scott Derrickson speak at a press conference after an advance screening of this film, I can tell you that he said that he thought the updating of this material “made a lot of sense”. But, I fear, Scott may be alone in his belief, as one thing you’ll leave this film with is questions if you ponder its happenings too much.
Yes, there’s an attempt to communicate some form of environmental fable, one which warns of coming apocalypse if we don’t stop abusing our planet and its resources, but it’s no deeper than that, and is lost in translation to become a rather clunky sentiment onscreen. Why can we not have a film which has a message, but some humour and romance thrown in too? Major reinvention of this material was clearly necessary but was not undertaken, given that this new The Day the Earth Stood Still (TDTESS) will be too dull, too dry and too full of clichés to properly entertain most folk.
Derrickson clearly loves the genre, and throws in a few Kubrickian shots along the way, but when your script is so slight and silly, you’re onto a loser from the get-go. Watching Keanu deliver lines like “It would only frighten you” in a laughably serious fashion is very entertaining but in the wrong way, given that you’ll be tittering at the stupidity of it all.
Worse than anything else, perhaps, is the limited range of Jaden “son of Will” Smith, showcased in too large a role. He’s a precocious and unappealing little actor, which doesn’t bode well for his future performance as the star of the ill-advised Karate Kid remake. To borrow the mode of expression Keanu once adopted as one half of Bill and Ted, you expect TDTESS to be like, wow, but it’s actually like, no. Let’s all re-rent the original.
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