I was extremely skeptical about the idea of a remake of Robert Wise's 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still for two reasons: A.) The original's success was directly tied to its commentary on the political climate of the 1950's, and would be difficult to replicate today for a variety of reasons and B.) it had Keanu Reeves in the lead role. Of course, I still decided to fork over my hard earned money to see it.
To my surprise, the movie was better that I expected, but it's just a shade under a good movie. To describe exactly why new movie doesn't quite work means I'll have to give away some key plot material for both films, so you've been warned.
The remake begins as Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) a biologist is "detained" by the U.S. government, who is investigating some strange astrological readings. It turns out that those readings are alien spaceship, which lands in New York City's Central Park. The movie takes forever to get through these scenes, as the scientists and military men discuss what every single audience member knows from the trailer (the original had the scenes to avoid this pointless buildup, as the UFO lands in Washington, D.C. in the first scene).
A weird looking alien steps out the spaceship and is shot by a soldier acting without orders. After a giant robot emerges to protect the spacecraft and aid his master, Benson and the other medics rush him to the hospital where he sheds his outer skin and becomes a biological human named Klaatu (Reeves). The Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) insists that Klaatu be sedated for questioning, but he easily escapes, with the assistance of Benson, who gives him a placebo instead of the drugs she was ordered to.
After he leaves, he enlists her aid in getting around on Earth, and slowly reveals his mission. His original intent was to speak to the world's leaders at the United Nations to warn them of the impending environmental catastrophe to Earth, but after his attack he has decides that humanity is hopeless and must be exterminated. The reasoning is simple: if the planetary rape continues, humanity will destroy itself anyway, so eliminating humans will save the planet and give all the other species a chance to thrive.
And this is the biggest difference between the two pictures: in the original, the alien (played brilliantly by Michael Rennie) ceaseless tried to aid humans, even when they did not deserve it, here, Klaatu seems annoyed at humans the whole time.
Much of the pleasure of the original involved the fey and somewhat ethereal Rennie relating to human society forming a mentorship to a young boy, but in this picture the kid (Benson's stepson, played by Jaden Smith is annoying) and "fey" and "ethereal" are two words that I do not usually associate with Keanu Reeves.
As my friend Tracey Stephens pointed out, the movie also seems a little unsure of whether it wants to be an action thriller or a metaphysical, nearly Solaris like drama, and ends up doing neither very well.
Finally, the original had a rather obvious Christ metaphor (though Wise claimed otherwise) that was appropriate. In the remake, the comparisons between Klaatu and Jesus are made more explicit, but are less relevant. The scene where Reeves walks on water is more weird than spiritually moving.
But- the movie is not boring and is sort of fun, although that might be a failure as it seems to want to make some deep statement about something. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the original I would have like it more, but I can't really recommend a remake that adds nothing to an acknowledged classic. Nikto!
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)