The Day the Earth Stood Still

Genre: Sci - Fi
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Kathy Bates, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, James Hong, Robert Knepper
Director: Scott Derrickson

The remake of the 1951 great Sci-Fi movie with the same name, “The day the Earth stood still” received a lot of negative reviews. And it's not that hard to believe, since it hard to rise to the previous movie's quality level. Usually remakes are not well received by the public. I guess it's something that has to do with the commitment or love some fans have for old movies that they have enjoyed a lot. Fidelity towards those black & white movies can't be easily twisted.

So, it's no wonder that Keanu Reeves, while acting pretty much like a Neo without the Matrix, received most of the blows. Jennifer Connelly, playing the pretty microbiologist, is really not that bad, and she and Keanu really communicate sometimes and create a good and trusty chemistry on the screen. The thing is, nothing these days is really believable. We know everything is make-believe, and we lack the necessary openness and innocence that made the 1951 original a huge hit. During the 50s the Cold War  brought the world a view of an apocalyptic end, with much more credibility than today's Middle East conflicts. Today we have MTV and live chat to thank for that, while they're keeping our minds off of what's really going on in the world. So don't blame the movie because you don't buy it, blame yourself for not taking an interest.

Well, I don't want to be mean, the movie lacks of course, the “magic” of serious alien movies  like “E.T”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind ”, and even the “Alien” series. Scott Derrickson should do some more research on alien movies, because special effects (which btw don't look that good, especially GORT's appearance) could never replace good acting skills, good directing and some reasonable scripts. All in all, the movie can be entertaining for those who didn't see the original, but if you really want to know the worth of this movie, go see the 1951 version after you watch this one.

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