Shawn's The Day the Earth Stood Still Review

2008 Movie #138 - The Day the Earth Stood Still

I made a conscious decision before watching this movie to not watch the original. I own the original and had every intention of watching it before I saw the remake. Then the reviews for this one started to pour in and I decided that maybe it would be better if I didn't have the original to compare it to. I wanted to watch this one as its own thing. Turns out, this one ain't bad. I'm sure the original is the superior movie, but this one is still pretty entertaining.

I think the main problem here is the movie suffers from the dreaded trailer highlight syndrome. This of course is when the trailer highlights all of the big moments of the movie. Therefore when you actually sit down and watch it you know what's coming and you feel like you've seen it all before. There are few surprises. At least they kept Gort's appearence a secret in this one. That thing is just ...just awesome. Although I could have used a little more Gort to be honest. There's still some cool stuff here, but just not enough surprises.

The acting is ok. Keanu Reeves is a strange entity as an actor but the casting director on this movie sure knew what they were doing when they cast him as an emotionless alien. He sure fits the role there's no denying that. Jennifer Connoly is good, but we've seen her do better. I think? ...Have we? I can only think of Dark Water and Hulk and well, there's really never any good reason to ever think about those things. Either way, acting is decent. Robert Knepper shows up again, once more pretty much just playing T-bag.

However Jaden Smith as the son is one of the most irritating characters I've seen in quite some time. I can't completely fault the actor since I'm sure it has a lot to do with how the character is written, but my GOD! I don't think I've ever want a child smacked more in my entire life. How the aliens didn't see this little prick and immediatly wipe us all out is completely beyond me. His character barely even serves a purpose until the very end. Up until that point I had no idea what his purpose was except to piss me off. I think we're suppose to sympathize with him but it's impossible when he's such a little shit to everyone all the time.

Little bastard aside, movie isn't bad. It was shorter than I expected, which almost works against it. Events feel a little rushed and could have used a little more time to develop. The conclusion of everything happens so fast that I was a little thrown off the movie was already over. The trailers also lead you to belive there is a lot of big budget action moments when really I would say the action takes up 2 minutes of the total movie at the most. I don't really care but it's still a very different movie from what the trailers are hyping up.

I would recommend doing what I did and not watching the original movie first. I think it helps when enjoying this one. It's not terrific, but it's pretty entertaining and despite a lot of people who hate it, I sort of dug the message behind the whole movie. Check this one out at least as a rental down the road. It will probably look pretty sweet in bluray.

***/5