Police Search For Escaped Convict Amidst Global Alien Invasion – ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ Review…
Posted on December 12, 2008 - 4:05am by michael
It was with great anticipation that I watched
The Day The Earth Stood Still. Special effects have improved enormously in the almost 60 years that have passed since the making of the
original film, which was released in 1951. Keanu Reeves seems the perfect choice for the role, given that he is born in the movie not unlike his bizarre birth in
The Matrix Reloaded. But the movie is never able to shake the impression that it’s a cheap, almost direct-to-dvd sci fi thriller with a weak story and bad special effects. The performances are about as good as can be expected, but the movie showcases some of the worst CGI I’ve seen in years.
The set-up at least works well enough. The government has tracked an object moving through space and, through a series of spectacularly detailed calculations, they decide that not only is the object going to directly impact earth, but it’s going to land right in the middle of Manhattan. Looks like New York is still having some bad luck in the movies. I was really curious to know how they discovered that exact location, but during the ominous speech about the object’s imminent arrival, it was explained that the object was moving at “3x10^7th meters/second.” That’s movie talk for “don’t bother trying to understand this part, it will be over in a minute.”
It is determined that there is no use starting an evacuation, because the area contains 8 million people and the object is expected to hit in 78 minutes. They have a countdown clock and everything, which works out nicely for the plot.
Surely I’m not spoiling anything if I explain that the object slows down as it approaches earth, right?
This is, of course, a unique alien invasion. They haven’t come in peace or to take over or to save the human race from ourselves, but to save the earth from the human race. It’s a pretty bald-faced political statement for a science fiction movie to make, but it doesn’t necessarily take away from the movie’s effectiveness or entertainment value.
What really costs it are the bad special effects. The object itself that lands in New York’s Central Park is certainly a special effects achievement, if a conspicuously unimaginative one. It’s a giant
Sphere that looks like the earth in the middle of a global storm, and a bizarre creature emerges from it.
Anyone who has seen
E.T. will notice a definitely familiar presentation of the authorities. Jennifer Connelly plays Dr. Helen Benson, a scientist who has been mysteriously whisked away to the site under strange circumstances (sort of exactly like the beginning of Sphere), and her shock is almost immediately replaced with a fascination that is suddenly shattered by the automatically violent human response. The creature emerging from the sphere is shot on sight and promptly dies.
This all happens within the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, of course. Soon an alien life form in the form of Keanu Reeves emerges (think of the bizarre shifting bodysuit that Reeves wore in
A Scanner Darkly) and informs Connelly that he and the group of civilizations that he represents are here to save the earth from humankind. “If the earth dies, you die,” He explains. “If you die, the earth survives.”
Logically, it’s kind of hard to argue with that.
The movie is basically a lashing out at the human (American?) propensity towards violence, probably most directly illustrated in one scene where the U.S. military attempts to blow up the giant metal man that emerges from the ship. When the attempt fails completely, the commander in charge is fresh out of ideas. There’s also the small issue that Helen’s husband was killed in Iraq, leaving her son Jacob (Jayden Smith) fatherless. I guess I don't need to explain that this is an anti-war movie.
As a piece of political science fiction, the movie is much more entertaining than you might think, but less than I expected. There are no problems accepting Reeves as an alien taking on human form, and even the issue of his ability to speak English is acknowledged, although mostly in suggesting that he can speak any language he wants. In one scene, he has a conversation with one of his colleagues who has been living on earth as a Chinese man for 70 years, and he explains that it’s hopeless to try to talk to these people, they’ll never change. It’s perfect, by the way, that this kind of thing would come from a Chinese, given that he has spent the better part of a century living in a country that, even in the 21st century, teaches its young people never to talk to westerners about things like government or politics because they can never understand the Chinese way.
I had been under the impression that
The Day The Earth Stood Still was going to be a bigger production than it is. It was marketed well and has a good cast, but it just has too much of the look and feel of a lower budget production, and borrows far too heavily and too obviously from so many other, generally better, science fiction films, from
E.T. and
Sphere to
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
Independence Day, and
War of the Worlds (another 1950s sci-fi classic which was remade better than this). It’s not a disappointment, fans of the genre are almost sure to be thrilled, but it doesn’t have the scope that a film of this caliber should have had.
The Bean Meter
[caption id="attachment_23603" align="aligncenter" width="222" caption="3 Beans out of 5."]
[/caption]
It was with great anticipation that I watched The Day The Earth Stood Still. Special effects have improved enormously in the almost 60 years that have passed since the making of the original film, which was released in 1951. Keanu Reeves seems the perfect choice for the role, given that he is born in the movie not unlike his bizarre birth in The Matrix Reloaded. But the movie is never able to shake the impression that it’s a cheap, almost direct-to-dvd sci fi thriller with a weak story and bad special effects. The performances are about as good as can be expected, but the movie showcases some of the worst CGI I’ve seen in years.
The set-up at least works well enough. The government has tracked an object moving through space and, through a series of spectacularly detailed calculations, they decide that not only is the object going to directly impact earth, but it’s going to land right in the middle of Manhattan. Looks like New York is still having some bad luck in the movies. I was really curious to know how they discovered that exact location, but during the ominous speech about the object’s imminent arrival, it was explained that the object was moving at “3x10^7th meters/second.” That’s movie talk for “don’t bother trying to understand this part, it will be over in a minute.”
It is determined that there is no use starting an evacuation, because the area contains 8 million people and the object is expected to hit in 78 minutes. They have a countdown clock and everything, which works out nicely for the plot.
Surely I’m not spoiling anything if I explain that the object slows down as it approaches earth, right?
This is, of course, a unique alien invasion. They haven’t come in peace or to take over or to save the human race from ourselves, but to save the earth from the human race. It’s a pretty bald-faced political statement for a science fiction movie to make, but it doesn’t necessarily take away from the movie’s effectiveness or entertainment value.
What really costs it are the bad special effects. The object itself that lands in New York’s Central Park is certainly a special effects achievement, if a conspicuously unimaginative one. It’s a giant Sphere that looks like the earth in the middle of a global storm, and a bizarre creature emerges from it.
Anyone who has seen E.T. will notice a definitely familiar presentation of the authorities. Jennifer Connelly plays Dr. Helen Benson, a scientist who has been mysteriously whisked away to the site under strange circumstances (sort of exactly like the beginning of Sphere), and her shock is almost immediately replaced with a fascination that is suddenly shattered by the automatically violent human response. The creature emerging from the sphere is shot on sight and promptly dies.
This all happens within the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, of course. Soon an alien life form in the form of Keanu Reeves emerges (think of the bizarre shifting bodysuit that Reeves wore in A Scanner Darkly) and informs Connelly that he and the group of civilizations that he represents are here to save the earth from humankind. “If the earth dies, you die,” He explains. “If you die, the earth survives.”
Logically, it’s kind of hard to argue with that.
The movie is basically a lashing out at the human (American?) propensity towards violence, probably most directly illustrated in one scene where the U.S. military attempts to blow up the giant metal man that emerges from the ship. When the attempt fails completely, the commander in charge is fresh out of ideas. There’s also the small issue that Helen’s husband was killed in Iraq, leaving her son Jacob (Jayden Smith) fatherless. I guess I don't need to explain that this is an anti-war movie.
As a piece of political science fiction, the movie is much more entertaining than you might think, but less than I expected. There are no problems accepting Reeves as an alien taking on human form, and even the issue of his ability to speak English is acknowledged, although mostly in suggesting that he can speak any language he wants. In one scene, he has a conversation with one of his colleagues who has been living on earth as a Chinese man for 70 years, and he explains that it’s hopeless to try to talk to these people, they’ll never change. It’s perfect, by the way, that this kind of thing would come from a Chinese, given that he has spent the better part of a century living in a country that, even in the 21st century, teaches its young people never to talk to westerners about things like government or politics because they can never understand the Chinese way. 
I had been under the impression that The Day The Earth Stood Still was going to be a bigger production than it is. It was marketed well and has a good cast, but it just has too much of the look and feel of a lower budget production, and borrows far too heavily and too obviously from so many other, generally better, science fiction films, from E.T. and Sphere to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Independence Day, and War of the Worlds (another 1950s sci-fi classic which was remade better than this). It’s not a disappointment, fans of the genre are almost sure to be thrilled, but it doesn’t have the scope that a film of this caliber should have had.
The Bean Meter
[caption id="attachment_23603" align="aligncenter" width="222" caption="3 Beans out of 5."]
