Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There is a reason why the original DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) is a classic and the remake (2008) is not. The FX of 1951 were minimal, but the emphasis on plot, acting, allegory, and scripting combined (as they so rarely do) to produce a film that is watchable even after many viewings. Where Keanu Reeves sleepwalks through his role as Klaatu, Michael Rennie invests his with a riveting performance as a pseudo-human who slowly and naturally learns what it means to be human. Hugh Marlowe in the original is totally believable as the weasly love interest for Patricia Neal. Marlowe's sliminess paired off well with Rennie's saintliness. In the remake, there is no one, except perhaps in a collective sense, who can distract the audience long enough to see Reeves as anything more than a mobile pained automaton who is only slightly more interesting than Gort.
Rennie causes the earth to stand still in a manner that emhasizes his godlike powers. His assumed name of Carpenter further allies himself as one who must suffer, die, and be reborn himself so as to save humanity from itself. Reeves arrives on earth determined to exterminate human life as a prerequisite for maintaining it in its supposed pristine state. His argument that John Cleese artfully exposes that Klaatu's own race avoided self-immolation only after arriving at a precipitous tipping point is exposed as a sophomoric inability to connect one moral thread of one race to a similar thread of another.
In the original, director Robert Wise uses deliberately blurred camera angles to present Rennie as one whose true nature can be only slowly revealed. Recall Rennie's introduction when he arrives at the boarding house to seek a room. Compare that masterly hiding of face and form with Scott Derrickson's inability or unwillingness to show Reeves' face as no more than a perpetual scowl. Kathy Bates as the Secretary of State manages to invest her role with the film's only note of authenticity as she correctly notes the inevitable results that occur when a technologically advanced culture collides with a significantly less advanced one.
Unless the audience manages to care about the lead (it does with Rennie but not with Reeves), then the director has no place to go but with FX. And for the umpteenth time, the revised version of TDTESS proves that the lack of acting and scripting cannot elevate a film to the point that FX can salvage.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Day the Earth Stood Still (Three-Disc Special Edition) (2008)
Disc 1: Widescreen Feature **Commentary by Writer David Scarpa **Deleted Scene: *Equipment is issued to the scientists *Helen and Granier discuss the shot *Extended version of Klaatu being wheeled down hallway **Vignette/Documentary/Featurette: *Re-Imagining "The Day" *Unleashing Gort *Watching the Skies: In Search of Extraterrestrial Life *The Day the Earth was "Green" **Gallery: *Concept Art *Storyboards *Production Photos Trailer: Theatrical Trailer Disc 2: Digital Copy Disc 3: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) (Full Screen) PS DVD **English: Mono, 5.1 Dolby Surround **Spanish & French: Mono
Get 49% OFF
No comments:
Post a Comment