The Day The Earth Stood Still (PG-13-2008)

Going into this movie with diminished expectations certainly helped. I was expecting an "all-time-bad" movie, but what I got was, well, just a bad movie. The major problem with "updating" 1950s science-fiction Cold War films is that they were very much of their time. Most of them were
metaphors which tapped into the fear and paranoia of the era. Moving the movies to modern day loses that edge and replacing it with cooler special effects does not really make it. In this instance, they tried to carry over the "metaphor" theme of the original, but there is no subtlety to the theme whatsoever. For a third of the film, it was just sort of straight-ahead "aliens come to earth" science fiction. Then, this exchange happened:

Helen Benson: I need to know what's happening.
Klaatu: This planet is dying. The human race is killing it.
Helen Benson: So you've come here to help us.
Klaatu: No, *I* didn't.
Helen Benson: You said you came to save us.
Klaatu: I said I came to save the Earth.
Helen Benson: You came to save the Earth... from us. You came to save the Earth *from* us.
Klaatu: We can't risk the survival of this planet for the sake of one species.

I practically groaned out loud. Oh, dear lord, another Hollywood global warming propaganda piece. This perfectly illustrates how out of touch Hollywood has become. In the 50s, fear or nuclear war and the Russians was everywhere. It was a palpable tension that continued into my childhood. The global warming thing is not even remotely the same. It may be what they talk about in their circles, but the rest of us are not even convinced it is an issue. They also can't even commit to the issue in this movie. As stated in the dialogue above, Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) explains that his mission is the greater good to save this planet. After spending the rest of the movie running around with the beautiful Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), he suddenly decides "Wait, if I go through with this, this chick will also be gone" and begins to try to undo his mission. I think this is supposed to be some "power of love" thing, but it really comes across as a "Hey, I must save this piece of (shut your mouth)" gimmick. So, to summarize, this was not "as bad" as I expected it to be, but it WAS bad!!

Grade: D

Trailer: