The Day the Earth Stood Still Full Movie Reviews

Full Movie Reviews

ikkegoemikke
ikkegoemikke
Movie God

Rating of
1.5/4

Dumb and Dumber

ikkegoemikke - wrote on 11/28/2017

What would you do when you're sitting with your family in the middle of nowhere in the Ardennes in a primitive looking cabin with only a crossword puzzle and a Galaxy tablet that doesn't work anymore because your limit of 150MB is reached ? I was smart enough to bring along my Medi8ter and connected it with the provided LCD-TV. Finally the kids got their overdose of cartoons and were sleeping in their cozy bed so I could browse on the Medi8ter and look for something to watch. Most of it are older movies like "The day the earth stood still". I wished time would have stopped so I wouldn't have wasted it.

Unfortunately I haven't seen the original film of 1951 and can't compare this remake . On the other hand I'm not so eager to watch such an antique movie with probably non-existing …

SIngli6
SIngli6
Producer

Rating of
1/4

Klaatu Barada Keanu

SIngli6 - wrote on 11/11/2012

Forgetting the bland performances, the humdrum special effects, and the prosaic direction, this film still manages to be almost shockingly bad just on the level of how it tackles some of the admittedly interesting ethical conundrums it sets out to explore, mainly because it mistakes its solutions to these problems as foreshadowing an advancement in human evolution when really they would just mark the beginning of an arduously prolonged and humiliating end for the species. And even though I love the original, I don't regard this film with pronounced vitriol just because it isn't an exact replica of that classic. I’m perfectly willing to admit that that film had its problems, and I'm even willing to admit that I found Keanu Reeves’ Klaatu a lot more interesting than Michael Rennie's …

Yojimbo
Yojimbo
Movie God

Rating of
2/4

"The Day The Earth Stood Still" by Yojimbo

Yojimbo - wrote on 02/03/2012

An alien visitation is treated with suspicion and aggression by the American government, leading to the decision that the Earth must be saved from destruction by the human race. A remake of the 50s classic by the same name, TDTESS is an invasion with eco message story about being responsible with the planet...or else. Keanu Reeves is adequate as the otherworldly visitor, but I couldn't help thinking that he based his entire performance on Arnie's in Terminator 2. The rest of the film is split between a bunch of explosions as the usual collection of stereotypical US jarheads try to blow the aliens up (seemingly for no reason other than to supply some fireworks for the trailer so morons will part with their 10 bucks to see it), and Jaden Smith essentially going …

Franz Patrick
Franz Patrick
Movie God

Rating of
2/4

Well, Keanu Reeves' Robotic Acting Worked...

Franz Patrick - wrote on 12/27/2008

I haven’t seen the 1951 version by the time I wrote this review so I’m not going to compare the 2008 version to that one. That said, it’s interesting to me how Keanu Reeves can be so good at playing robotic characters (like Neo in “The Matrix” franchise) but so bad at playing real people that are supposed to be emotionally crippled or conflicted (as Alex Wyler in “The Lake House” and Detective Tom Ludlow in “Street Kings”). I thought he was effective here as Klaatu, a humanoid whose role is to determine whether the human species need to be obliterated in order to save the Earth. He was creepy, convincingly powerful, and had a definite sense of purpose. He claims that if the Earth dies, everything else will perish along with it but if all humans die, the Earth and …

BryanFury
BryanFury
Producer

Rating of
2/4

Once is enough

BryanFury - wrote on 12/20/2008

I'm not going to compare this one from the 50's version cause I haven't seen it what I would say though is that this movie just made the borderline for me. I mean how could you hate an end of the world type of movie with Chinese speaking aliens on it. I guess in a sense you’re probably thinking this remake would suck because of all the negative reviews about it but in the end the true test is to see it yourself. In my honest opinion the whole movie in totality stood on its own feet. It had great actors (Keanu, Jennifer and Jaden), a somewhat good yet at times preachy story and a plausible CG effects. The only thing I had a problem with is fact that there isn’t enough energy throughout the whole movie. It definitely lacks that wow factor you’re expecting. At the end of it all you …

Josh C
Josh C
Producer

Rating of
3/4

When did humanity become taboo for movies?

Josh C - wrote on 12/20/2008

Having never seen the original, I wasn't sure what the storyline actually was, but I liked what I saw. The movie had a really interesting, and somewhat thought provoking, story. Some of the parts were a bit slow and I think they could have done without the entire "dead father" story. Still, I enjoyed watching it and discussing the movie afterward.

Regardless of people's political, religious and other views are, the movie is FICTION. What is the deal with people getting angry over the message in the plot. Are all alien movies now anti-god because people view that humans are the only race in the universe so we cannot even discuss other possibilities? Why are people so up in arms about the idea that human's could hurt the world or the people in it?

It simply amazes me how two …

phantom
phantom
Producer

Rating of
1.5/4

gort, my how you've grown

phantom - wrote on 12/17/2008

did anybody hear Klatuu Barada Niktoe, at any point during this film?
It's the most iconic sentence of the original, and for some reason they couldn't squeeze it in.
Mostly the names are the same, everything else has changed. Prof. Barnhart (sp?) who in the original gets all the scientists together, here the Prof. is little more than a cameo by John Cleese. And this Prof rather than doing something that helps the plot, simply tell Jennifer Connelly to try to tell Klatuu/Keanu that humans are worth not killing. She was doing that already.
I think Keanu did a good job. It's not his fault the film makers couldn't decide on a plot.
The original is a classic, this one is not. It was directed by a master craftsman Robert Wise, who gave us some of the most iconic films of the 20th century, …

kcvidkid
kcvidkid
Producer

Rating of
1.5/4

The Day the Earth Stood Still (the bad one)

kcvidkid - wrote on 12/16/2008

I know, I know. It was a huge mistake to watch the original version before the remake. But I had no expectations that it would compare. I just hoped it would at least be a nice, Sunday afternoon diversion. I never anticipated that I would absolutely hate it!

I actually held hope at the beginning. Well, not the VERY beginning; I could immediately tell that I wasn't going to like the idea of the aliens having been here forever and taking Keanu's DNA. Did they really need to explain why the alien looked like Bill (or is it Ted)? But after that, when he arrives in a gummy suit that peels away to reveal his humanlike body. I thought, o.k., I like how they're going to update the story to translate it from 1951 to 2008.

But after that point, there was not one thing I liked about …

Chris Kavan
Chris Kavan
Movie God

Rating of
2/4

An Inconvenient Truth... with Extreme Prejudice

Chris Kavan - wrote on 12/13/2008

Oh somewhere Al Gore is laughing and weeping. Remakes in general are a gamble - remakes of beloved classics even more so. Granted, the original Day the Earth Stood still might not be Casablanca or Gone with the Wind, but it's a science fiction classic none-the-less.

So it's 2008 and how does Hollywood decide to update such a film? Like they always do: throw in some nifty special effects, update the story to reflect some modern calamity (in this case the environment) and shove a feel-good family story in for good measure. Not surprisingly, the results are less than stellar, though it could have been worse.

First off, casting Keanu Reeves as Klaatu is a bit of an oddity. He plays the alien rather well - maybe a bit too well. His range of emotions ranges from uncaring and robotic …

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