Dec 16, 2008 06:03 PM
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(Updated Dec 18, 2008 12:40 AM)
The Day The Earth Stood Still is a legendary example of how a wonderful original classic can be made pointless and insipid in its remake. The original 1951 movie had a message of how human violence is meaningless and can only bring about destruction of their own species, but this 2008 remake does not even skim the surface of that message. As such, the movie is a complete washout.
The movie begins with an UFO hurtling toward the earth(more specifically toward Manhattan) due to which several scientists of the US are urgently and secretly brought to the NASA facility. Among them is Dr. Helen Benson(Jennifer Connelly) who has to leave behind her stepson Jacob(Jaden Smith, Will Smith's son) back home. They are told about the impending arrival of the object and they can do nothing but wait and then find a solution to the problem. When the object arrives, it is a mysterious sphere from which an even more mysterious being Klaatu emerges. The military who has been stationed here get all panicky and Klaatu gets a shot and collapses. This brings out a gigantic automaton from the object who immobilizes the entire military and stands guard at the place so that no further hits occur.
Klaatu is taken to a medical facility and is operated upon. His alien flesh begins to disintegrate and converts into a human form(Keanu Reeves). He recovers. The secretary of defense Regina Jackson(Kathy Bates) meets with him. Klaatu tells her that he has come to protect earth and for that his civilizations will need to destroy the human race. This is the mission he was sent for – to open a peace dialog with the earth which was bunged up with the first shot he received. The human penchant for violence will now be paid for with their extermination from the planet.
The US militaries hold Klaatu in custody and try to destroy the object that arrived and the automaton, but these are destroyed themselves. Meanwhile, Helen helps Klaatu to escape from the facility. The two then have long dialogs in which Helen tries to convince Klaatu not to destroy the earth. Klaatu says he has come to destroy humans and not the earth. Helen then takes her to meet the Nobel Prize winner Professor Barnhardt(John Cleese in a short role) who has a discussion with Klaatu, but to no purpose. The only important line that Professor Barnhardt tells Klaatu is that "at the precipice, things begin to change". Klaatu still carries the message that earth will be destroyed and that "the decision has been made, the process has begun".
What happens later is the devastation beginning to happen even as Helen finally manages to convince Klaatu why he should give the humans "one more chance". The thing that finally converts Klaatu is when Jacob, Helen's son, takes him to a graveyard where his father was buried. His father died in a War and he tells Klaatu to "bring him back" because he has seen Klaatu do that before. Klaatu says "there are some things even I cannot do".
Meanwhile the military has taken the automaton captive. They are researching on him, but he breaks free, destroys the entire facility and disintegrates into zillions of tiny insect like creatures that begin swarming over the entire planet, destroying everything in their wake. Before disintegrating, the automaton shuts off all power on the earth and brings it to a standstill.
Cutting to the end, Klaatu is convinced that humans must be spared one more time. He saves both Helen and Jacob from impending death due to the swarm attack and moves forth to stop the destruction. He does that, the attack stops, earth is saved and Klaatu is seen no more. The UFOs(by now many more UFOs similar to the first one have landed on the earth) leave and Jacob says "He is gone."
That, in essence, was the whole movie. If you think about Terminator here, you will not be much mistaken, because many plot elements are similar, especially the interactions between Klaatu and Jacob.
But the faults with the movie are too many to mention. For a movie about a cataclysm, there is absolutely no tension created here. Earth is getting destroyed on the screen, with amazing special effects, I must say, but that does not touch you anywhere. You do not feel for it. If you are expecting a movie on the lines of Independence Day or even The Day After Tomorrow, forget this one. This does not have any of that interest value. Most importantly, the main message of the movie – that of humans being punished for their violent nature – is totally lost in this movie, making it a worthless exercise in special effects and nothing more.
Keanu Reeves sleepwalks through the role because he has done this before on several occasions. Hence you do not see the suaveness of him that you saw in the Matrix or the daredevil brazen attitude that you saw in Speed. Even the sensitiveness that he has in My Own Private Idaho is surprisingly absent in this movie, where there is a lot of scope for him to display that.
If you are a special effects freak, you are going to be disappointed too. Not because there aren't good special effects, but because there are too few of them. Whatever is there is great, but that's about it.
In my opinion, wasting time on this movie is seriously avoidable. Go to your neighborhood DVD rental and get the original black and white version which will certainly be more meaningful.
