Review of The Day the Earth Stopped (2008) by Robert H — 10 Oct 2010

If you thought the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still was bad, you might have missed this little beauty put out by The Asylum, makers of films copying Hollywood blockbusters... or mockbusters as we like to call them.

Truth be told, this is one of the better films I've seen from The Asylum. It does a decent job of telling the general story and the special FX are ok. I thought the giant robots in this film were a lot cooler than either of the "Stood Still" pictures.

Where this film lost me was in two parts. First is the acting. Asylum pictures are notorious for lame acting but this one seemed exceptionally bad for some reason. Maybe it's the whole emotional saving of the planet aspect where we have to convince the aliens we're worth saving. That needs some serious acting chops to be pulled off and if you thought Reeves did a bad job... you haven't seen anything yet.

But if that wasn't bad enough... most the film takes place in a, get this, abandoned industrial building. So when aliens land on planet Earth, apparently the US government is going to set up in some warehouse area, bringing make-shift gear, and make first contact. It's not going to be at the Pentagon, White House, Area 51, NASA, NORAD, a military base, or any of the more likely places. Nope, according to this movie, the military and government are going to set up some laptops in an abandoned building (apparently an old jail or something) and deal with the problem there. Riiiiight.