The Day the Earth Stood Still

** Stars

Keanu Reeves returns to the genre that made him famous. We didn't ask for an encore.

Keanu Reeves, I feel bad for you. I don't know why but for some reason I do. You seem to be a nice guy who shows up on set ready to work. But why do you fail to capture human emotions on screen? I know this time around you're playing an alien, but you still haven't convinced me that you're a movie star. The Matrix and Speed are two of my favorite blockbusters and you succeeded in those films, but I think now is the time for someone to say this to you: Either try something different, or stop making movies.

The Day the Earth Stood Still is not a good film. It sucks, actually. And I hate to see Jennifer Connelly stuck inside a film that won't even let her breathe the way she wants to. The movie is a sequence of paralyzed frames that capture some astounding visuals, but avoid any chance of exploring the abstract.

The movie is based off the 1951 original film. Reeves plays Klaatu, an alien who captures a human body to explore Earth's chances of saving his species. He's here to save the Earth. Not humans.

That's actually a really interesting concept to explore in our day and age. There are moments where we see chances of great debate. However, the film becomes preachy the second Klaatu is captured and held for question by the government. It's a way of telling us that our government cares more about National Security than exploring the unknown. I love the idea, but the execution feels extremely elementary.

The government is represented by the Secretary of Defense played by Kathy Bates, who looks completely and utterly bored. When Klaatu escapes custody with the help of Dr. Helen Benson (Connelly), the two begin to find a way to stop the attack that seems to be dooming the world. Jaden Smith plays Helen's stepson Jacob, who loses all the respect that I gave him for The Pursuit of Happyness. The kid is really freaking annoying. Although I admit that his character has little structure to follow anyways. Whatever, don't really care at this point.

I'll admit that the film is visually spectacular, the first twenty minutes is exciting and attention-grabbing, and the idea of remaking the original seemed very timely. Sadly, this instantly forgettable remake is reduced to the level of cinema that critics and audiences are forced to sit through time and time again.