The Day the Earth Grew Bored

Poet T.S. Eliot said the world will end not with a bang but a whimper.  Never was that sentiment more true than in this weekend’s remake of the 1951 classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still.   Made during the Cold War, the story was obviously metaphoric for what was happening in the world.  An alien lands and tells the people of Earth that they must live peacefully or be destroyed as a danger to other planets.  

Nearly sixty years later, the remake has more an ecological approach that might make Al Gore smile.  Earth finds itself under attack by a meteor, when suddenly it turns out to be a space orb which lands in Central Park.  With the military surrounding the orb, as well as a slew of scientists, including Jennifer Connelly, standing by in Hazmat suits, out walks an Alien.   For some reason, a shot is fired, the Alien goes down, and out pops a giant Robot there to render all our weapons useless.

What ensues from this point on is pure absurdity.  The alien is operated on to remove the bullet, then mysteriously starts evolving into human form…or Keanu Reeves form anyway, speaking English.  His name is Klaatu and he’s here with a mission: to protect Earth.  If that means wiping out mankind, so be it.

It’s up to Jennifer Connelly and her African American stepson (played by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s son, Jaden) to change his mind.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next.   See, the Earth doesn’t just stand still in this incarnation — it’s no where to be found. 

With New York City evacuated, the only sense of world wide panic we get to see is through over-used stock news footage.  Instead, all we do get to see is cliche military types trying in futility to attack Gort, the giant robot (who resembles an early rendering of Iron Man).  Even Kathy Bates has a hard time rising above the material. 

For Reeves’s part, his management team obviously picks his parts well.  To play alien Klaatu, Reeves had to dig down yet again and try to deliver his best wooden and stilted delivery — the same acting chops he sharpened in the three Matrix movies.  As an actor, it seems he knows his limitations — with the exception of his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 18th century gothic romance, Dracula or, as I used to call it, “Bill & Ted Meet Dracula.”

Connelly, on the other hand, does what she can to lend credibility to this snooze-fest but with little avail. Even the special effects we’ve seen before — and better.  

Sadly, that’s the real lesson you walk away with from The Day the Earth Stood Still.  For some reason, Hollywood seems to be in love with these post-apocalyptic thrillers, like I Am Legend and War of the Worlds.  Rather than star power, what all these movies seem to lack are real earned thrills… Instead, we’re given a hodgepodge of under-developed characters and clichés in a shiny package.  Here’s hoping if and when the apocalypse happens, movies like this are left in the dust.