[6]
Keanu Reeves (Speed, The Matrix) stars as Klaatu, an alien visiting Earth to assess whether humanity deserves to live or die in this remake of the 1951 atomic-age classic. Humanity’s potential for atomic annihilation takes a more ecological bent in the remake, but it still follows the first film’s general story outline. Klaatu escapes government capture and finds a sympathetic friend in a scientist played by Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Labyrinth). His observations of Connelly and her adopted son (Jaden Smith) soften his skeptical views on humanity, even while the American military are hot on their tails, demonstrating nothing but our propensity for violence.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is well cast, with Reeves playing his part suitably reticent and puzzling. It’s Connelly who really carries the movie, though. She balances compassion and determination, charismatic enough to hold our attention through a film driven by plot more than character. Young Smith gives a surprisingly good child performance. John Cleese (A Fish Called Wanda) makes a brief but welcome appearance as a Nobel prize-winning scientist Connelly enlists to help convince Klaatu of humanity’s better angels. He ends up sharing the theme of the movie with Klaatu, that only at the precipice of disaster does humanity change its ways. The only cast member who strikes a sour note is, surprisingly, the great Kathy Bates (Misery, Primary Colors). Her take on the Secretary of State, representing both the president and the military in the movie, feels one-dimensional in a film that otherwise seems to aim for greater nuance.
The film mostly works as a classic sci-fi tale, thoughtful and illuminating in the way good sci-fi tends to be. But it also feels out of its time. Modern audiences expect more action and visceral thrills, but The Day the Earth Stood Still offers little of that. What action we do get comes almost entirely from Gort, the towering robot that arrives with Klaatu in the beginning. Whenever the military overstep their bounds, Gort starts blowing things up. At one point he even self-disintegrates into a horde of microscopic robots that eat through everything like locust. Gort and the military comprise a secondary plot, so the action is almost completely removed from the main storyline featuring Reeves and Connelly.
The strongest part of the film is the first half-hour, before Klaatu and Gort land on Earth — before we even know who or what they are, or that their vessel isn’t a meteor on a collision course with Manhattan. Director Scott Derrickson (Black Phone, Sinister) does a good job building mystery and suspense there. But after that, this remake begins to steadily lose steam, relying on good actors doing the best they can with underwritten parts in a film that should feel grander in scope and more terrifying in tone.
With Jon Hamm, Kyle Chandler, and James Hong.