The Cap'n watched the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still less than 24 hours again, and I've already forgotten most of it. What I do remember is that whatever the folks who made this had in mind didn't pan out; this movie doesn't even have the moxie to push the eco-friendly agenda that's all over the bonus features. In fact, it doesn't have the moxie to do or say much of anything. Instead, this Day the Earth Stood Still strips away anything interesting about the original and replaces it with wall to wall effects shots and a mean spirited "humans suck and you fuckers deserve this" attitude.
If you're saying "well, yeah! we did screw up the earth and probably do deserve to be wiped out by Klaatu's robot locust army" (more on that in a second), you'll still be pissed off by the last second "redemptive" moment caused by two characters that totally don't deserve it. This version of the film isn't a cautionary tale; it's a condemnation watered down a by cop-out that is in no way earned by the worthless people who populate the movie.
Maybe that's the most irritating part, because if you're going to make The Day the Earth Stood Still and say "it's too late, the aliens have decided you're past redemption", then it doesn't matter that every character in the film is either a cipher who helps Klaatu move from point a to point b (Jennifer Connelly) or some total asshat who stubbornly refuses to stop for a second and think with their dinosaur brain (Jaden Smith and pretty much everybody else). When Klaatu is Keanu Reeves and he's STILL the most interesting part of the movie, you know you're in trouble.
At least Reeves has something to do. This Klaatu isn't here to issue an ultimatum; well, he tries, but instead the Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) flat out refuses to let him leave custody. Klaatu being an alien and all, he just walks out, but thanks to the movie he's in, humanity is looking pretty shitty from the get go. Oh, and the fact that when they shoot him this time around, he's not even holding some alien device. He's just standing there and one of the cops or military assholes just pops a cap in him.
For those wondering, Gort is in the movie but it's with a handful of stupid contrivances. For one thing, his name is Gort not because Klaatu said so, but because the Army gives it as some stupid acronym (Genetically something something something). While this doesn't become a plot hole until you think carefully about it, the "Klaatu Berata Nikto" shut-off command seems to work after Klaatu is shot but not later when Gort turns into a swarm of robot locusts.
That's right: the thing you saw eating that truck and Giants Stadium was Gort. It's almost pointless to have Gort in the movie, save for the fact they could show off some fancy CG effects by having a gigantic robot blow up some missiles. But then again, a lot of things in this movie happen because they wanted to show off CG techniques instead of develop characters.
Since none of you need to see this, it's not going to be a spoiler to tell you that Jon Hamm's character dies for no good reason near the end of the film, and I didn't even care. He's so unimportant to The Day the Earth Stood Still that you wonder why they bothered bringing him back into the story just to kill him. None of the other characters seem to care, so why should we.
In fact, the only character I was actively rooting to die was Jaden Smith's character. He's a wholly unlikeable kid who does nothing to redeem himself during the movie. Instead, he treats his step-mother (Connelly) like shit, tries repeatedly to have Klaatu arrested or killed, and then demands an alien bring back his dead father, presumably so the dead father can "Kill the alien" like Smith assumes he would. Since this little fucker is the reason that Klaatu has his "change of heart" and decides to shut off Gort, I really felt The Day the Earth Stood Still lacked any legitimate argument. Everyone acts like an ass and then has a half-hearted / practically non-existent moment of weeping and the alien suddenly changes his mind? Fuck that! In that reality, we deserved a lot worse than being eaten by robot bugs.
Oh, and since the significance of the title comes up (albeit in a really stupid way), I'll close by addressing that. In the original, Klaatu makes everything stop to prove a point: "We have the ability to fix this if you won't, but we're asking you to try." In the remake, the "Day the Earth Stood Still" happens because Klaatu stops Gort from eating New York and then flies away, and I guess all the power on Earth disappears. That's it. The movie is over so quickly after this happens that you're left saying "wait, that's it? that's why the earth stood still? this movie is retarded!"
Nothing in this remake happens because it would logically occur that way, mostly because story contrivances keep getting in the way and forcing the film to go in a "nicer" direction, even if nothing that leads up to that point justifies the end result. The movie itself won't even say that we need to "go green" because I don't think they really believe it. Oh sure, the extras make that case over and over, but the movie only says that humans are a problem. The whole "nuclear annihilation" angle from the original is wiped out by a half-assed "Inconvenient Truth" soapbox. But like everything else in this Bad Idea of a Film, it's half assed.
The Cap'n has seen it so that you won't have to. No need to thank me, it's just my job. Please don't ask me about Shit Coffin. Fuck that movie.
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