Rating of
2/4
"The Day The Earth Stood Still" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/03/12
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 "Arewethereyetarewethereyetarewethereyet?" for an hour before blubbing which obviously would persuade any self-respecting alien civilisation that we are NOT in fact a bunch of self-serving, murdering bastards (even though we were still trying to nuke his spaceship at the time). Plus Gort is transformed for the pleasure of the aforementioned morons into a cross between Robocop and Godzilla and supplies the Independence Day destruction that no sci-fi film seems to be able to go without these days. As a whole it's rubbish, but not boring and has a lot more in common with a mish-mash of Sphere, ID4 and a particularly charmless cover version of Starman than the film it was supposedly based upon.
