Movies & TV blog

Movie review: ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’

By Zack McGhee | Sunday, December 14, 2008, 09:33 PM

Much to my surprise, the downfall of the just-released The Day the Earth Stood Still remake is its fidelity to its source. Robert Wise’s iconic 1951 sci-fi film is hardly a masterpiece. It bathes us in images of an era that revisionist history has long since fetishized as the peak of America’s idealism, and then gently takes that world to task for its escalating aggression. Still, as doomsday warnings go, it is remarkably pleasant: Revisiting it as part of last year’s inaugural Screenpeace film series — in a stunning 35mm print — I found joy in its optimism, Klaatu’s sense of discovery, Bernard Herrmann’s innovative score, and the retro-novelty of its sci-fi elements.

That said, nothing much happens in the original — at least, not by today’s standards — so I expected the screenplay by David Scarpa to work as a kind of re-imagining rather than just straight adaptation. And indeed, the film starts off by introducing us to Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). No longer a secretary and single-mom, she’s an astrobiologist whisked away by government agents on a top secret mission. An object is hurtling toward Manhattan, and — if it can’t be stopped — the government wants to be prepared for the aftermath. When the object turns out to be Klaatu’s spaceship, local police and federal agents surround it. Klaatu is shot by a trigger-happy cop, and whisked away to a secret facility. Those first two reels have a crackerjack urgency and inventiveness that quickly dissipates, and then the film more or less follows the trajectory of its predecessor, with environmental catastrophe sitting in for the atomic bomb.

To be fair, there are other changes. We learn that Klaatu is reborn as a human once he arrives on Earth, which explains his striking resemblance to Keanu Reeves. We never see his alien form, but he tells Dr. Benson it would only frighten her. (This change makes sense, but undermines the ultra-faithful design of this movie’s GORT, which still has the shape of a giant person.) Klaatu’s ship — now a translucent sphere rather than a flying saucer — lands in Central Park, not Washington DC; his goal is to address the United Nations, not just the United States. Helen’s son is now her stepson, Jacob, who is not the wide-eyed, precocious child of the original, but frustrating, irrational, and rebellious. (If it were up to you to give the human race a second chance after spending a day with that kid, the decision wouldn’t be easy.)

The active subtext is related not only to climate change, pollution, and the short supply of our natural resources, but also the arrogance of American military might. Helen helps Klaatu escape when his mission is short-circuited by quasi-fascist Secretary of Defense Kathy Bates, who perceives Klaatu’s arrival as an invasion, his mere existence a threat. Frankly, in today’s atmosphere of economic collapse and political transformation, with the Bush administration on its way out, this level of heavy-handed cultural criticism seems counterproductive. Connelly is fine, and Reeves — unfairly lampooned for more than 20 years — is actually very good. But thankless supporting roles by John Cleese and two of TV’s best leading men (Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights) only serve to underline the limitations of the script, which ends abruptly to leave us only more dissatisfied.

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