From HorrorFanatics.com:
I'm putting out an open message to all readers: If at any point you ever
know a way in which I can openly sit in a screening room with Tom Rothman
or generally any executive at 20th Century Fox, please let me know. I will give
money, sperm, the life of my first born...anything just to sit there as the
credits roll up after a balmy 90 minutes of watching, whatever mess they
have and ask, 'why'? Or better yet 'how'? How could they release a film this
bad? This is fucking with a classic and this isn't a questionable classic. This is
a film that in 1951 really opened the doors for science fiction films to have
meaning beyond fantasy ideas of starships and ray guns. Today we have
"The Day the Earth Stood Still", a 104 minute (slightly longer than most
Rothman fair) film that starts us off fast and finishes with a big, confusing,
cheesy, stupid, meaningless and all around lousy ass finale.
In case you don't know the 1951 classic was a parable about the horrors of
nuclear war and that it would be man that would destroy this planet. So
rather than have us screw it up, the alien Klaatu is sent to either: A) Look
over our doings and see if we are capable of changing. Or B) Destroy all
humans and save planet earth. That's basically the plot of this one sans
nukes. Now it just generally seems to be us. It's hinted at our way of life
that's killing the planet, but the film lacks any real attempts to get political. I
guess it thought since Jennifer Connelly is mothering a black child in Jaden
Smith that it was 'edgy' enough. Keanu Reeves plays the alien Klaatu. It's
not really him acting as much as it is him talking from time to time and
walking briskly as if he's headed to the rest room, or to the bank to cash his
awesome money check he just got.
Connelly is slightly more into it, but she's just that kind of actress. If she was
in 'Pootie Tang' she would have acted the shit out of it no matter how many
terrible lines they gave her. Which would have rivaled however many they
gave her in this. And then there's some great supporting work of 'Mad Men'
star John Hamm, who's role is almost completely unnecessary. There's also
Robert Knepper as The Colonel trying to destroy the giant orbes as well as
Klaatu's protecter known as GORT (more on him later). And finally Kathy
Bates as a general "Hilary-Palin" hybrid secretary of defense while the
president and vice president remain hidden and silent while this global event
takes place. All of these skilled performers had better things to do than this
pile of crap. And guess what the biggest pile of crap was? Our man GORT.
GORT in the original is the robot that occupied Klaatu.
He was slightly taller than most men and had a laser firing out of his viser to
protect his master. Now we are introduced to the new GORT. A giant orgy
love child between Cyclopse, the Silver Surfer and the Jolly Green Giant. And
who's CGI is actually so, so, SO poor that it's the equivlent of placing a
sticker over a bad drawing you made and parading it around like it's great. I
mean there is some horrible, horrible effects in this film and YES it is all the
things NOT shown on the trailers. Those were the only impressive scenes.
The ones of destruction and what not, but beyond that they all resemble a
cut scene from a PS2 game. Director Scott Derrickson ('The Exorcism of
Emily Rose') manages to squeeze out about four or five good to reasonable
scenes in this whole mess. Mostly due to good angles. However, almost
everything in here is inter-cut with poorly rendered CGI.
In fact I'm sure that next year Fox will be using simple polygon's for effects.
The more talky scenes there are, the better, but nothing said is all that earth
shattering or dramatic or even that interesting. The worst thing is in the end
we still should die. It doesn't matter about the other side of humans. We will
never stop what makes our lives easier or more comfortable. It's not gonna
happen. But we all knew how this ended from square one...I don't need to
say it. So, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" will be playing near you in a couple
of days. And I urge anyone even considering at this point to see it...don't. If
you want to hold out hope on something good, just re-watch the trailer. And
keep watching it until you're finally happy, but for the love of God do not
spend money on seeing this. It's terrible. Not good for a laugh, or in need of
being seen on the big screen, because it's really not. It's a mild sized, wanna
be sci-fi disaster movie. One with no point, power or punch.
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