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Movie review: The Day the Earth Stood Still
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Add greed and stupidity to the colossal failings and menaces that the human race has to offer the universe along with violence and ecological destruction. Not much has changed since director Robert Wise released his modest, pristinely shot and intelligently cast 1951 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Wise wanted his story about an extraterrestrial threatening Earthlings with annihilation to be a warning and a plea for collaboration among all nations toward a common goal of peace and preservation of the priceless terra firma over which they were and still are fighting and plundering.
Scott Derrickson took the directing reins of the current remake starring Keanu Reeves as the interplanetary emissary determined to screw some heads on straight among Earth’s leaders. Exactly where Klaatu hails from was vague in 1951; but at least the remake’s writers provide an origin story for Klaatu’s human form in a “prologue” set in 1928, showing Keanu as a mountain climber in the Himalayans encountering a mysterious glowing orb. The next time we see him, his body remarkably preserved after 80 years, he is in military custody, liberated from a blubbery, placenta-like, bio-engineered space suit, blankly intoning that his “body will take some getting used to.”
A glowering defense secretary (Kathy Bates) is not amused by his insistence to speak to national leaders about his “intentions” and by his contention that it is not “your planet.” Klaatu, the enormous orb which brought him to earth and the huge “automaton” robot, GORT (“genetically organized robotic technology”), are threats of global proportion; and it’s hard for a mind hard-wired to think military counter-measures to aggression to suddenly think in terms of sitting down and having a friendly chat.
Klaatu has little choice but to come to the conclusion that it is not “a reasonable race” he is dealing with, and to put in motion the force which will destroy it. But, like the Grinch, there is a Cindy Loo, tugging at his sleeve and asking why.
It is astrobiologist and Princeton professor Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), who gets the dire situation and the need for dialogue. Not only does she want her planet to survive, she wants humans to change for the sake of a little boy (Jaden Smith, Will’s son) left fatherless by war. Her instincts as a mother, as a concerned citizen of not just her country, but the world; and, as a scientist concerned with understanding life wherever it is found in space, will prompt Klaatu to think clemency.
Like Scrooge, mankind must declare it has changed and mean it, with heart and mind. The basic message is more relevant than ever in these days of heightened perils to security and stability around the world. That is the only part of the original movie that has transplanted well and movingly to this production.
While Connelly’s ardent performance makes her “updated” Helen (in 1951, she is a secretary) a worthy successor, Reeves’ characterization of Klaatu, in comparison to the elegant Michael Rennie, can only be described as lethargic, raising nary a goosebump or romantic fantasy.
Rather than aspiring to classic designation, this production has inspired the choice of worst movie of the year by the St. Louis Film Critics Association. A 20th Century Fox release, rated PG-13 for some sci-fi disaster images and violence.
