Review of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) by Ashley K — 12 Jun 2012

Like 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', 'Psycho' and 'The Omen' this is one of those remakes that pissed me off on general principal. Why Hollywood feels the need to remake movies that were perfect in their original form is beyond me. Well, we all know it is because of a lack of interesting ideas, but I digress. The original version of this film is arguably the greatest science-fiction film ever made. If not the best, it is most certainly in the Top 10.

Saying all that about halfway I found myself actually enjoying this one. It seemed quite different from the original, and I must admit I found myself liking some of the differences. For example, I liked the idea of an almost birth-like process in the development of Klaatu. I'm neither a Keanu Reeves fan nor a Keanu Reeves hater, but I liked his performances as Klaatu.

The problem for me came when the whole leftist "global warming" agenda became the reason for Klaatu's mission. As a libertarian, I'm not a believer in the man-made global warming scam. Either way Klaatu's statement that if man lives the planet dies, if man dies the planet lives is rather absurd. Even if there is man-made global warming, it will kill humans, but the planet itself will recover as it always has throughout its existence. As George Carlin once said, "The planet isn't going anywhere...we are!" There are plenty of other things that will cause human extinction before global warming (superflu, asteroid, etc.), so the major plot point became absurd to me. Hence the rating.