The Day the Earth Stood Still

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I had my choice as to which movie I was going to screen last night, and I had to choose from Nothing Like the Holidays, Delgo, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. I thought I was picking the shiniest turd in the toilet bowl, but I’m sure I was wrong now.

As great as an “end of the world” movie staring Keanu Reeves sounds, I was left more disappointed than I thought I would be.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a remake of the 1951 movie of the same name, which was based on the short story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates. While I haven’t seen the 1951 version, I have read the short story. This modern version focuses less on the self-destructive nature of humans, and instead focuses on the destructive nature of mankind towards all other things – namely the environment and other life forms.

For being a main character, Keanu Reeves did not have much screen time. The story seemed to revolve mostly around Jennifer Connelly’s character Helen. While the acting in the movie left a lot to be desired, it was the CGI that really killed this movie.

The swarm that is seen in the trailer is a collective of insects that destroy and assimilate everything in its path. Unfortunately, they make it a point to repeatedly show you that it is a swarm of insects by zooming in on a few individuals, and the individual insects looked like crap. The spheres look like low-res cloud and fiber motion renderings that shoot god beams everywhere. They even used a CGI rendering of a Keanu stand-in to show the “birth” of Klaatu in his human body. Whatever happened to actors getting covered in slime to do a scene, instead of getting a virtual actor to get covered in slime in a CGI rendering of a scene?

I didn’t completely hate the movie. I just didn’t like the story, the acting, the effects, or the script. I thought the underlying plot was good. The execution was lacking, but that can be blamed on all of the things I already mentioned. The movie felt like a CGI laden version of The Happening, which made it bad.