Upon its release in 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still set standards for science fiction films met only a few times in that paranoid, watch the sky decade of flying saucers, McCarthy and the threat of nuclear annihilation. The cosmic orchestra and eerie theremin of its musical score suggested the awe of infinity and the unknown. The special effects behind the saucer and the hulking robot called Gort were simple and essential. The message delivered by the interstellar emissary Klaatu, though carried along by a swift moving plot and compelling characters, was blunt: give up atomic weapons or else!
It wasn't perfect art but an entertaining and meaningful movie, a classic of its kind. Why remake it? Is it only to capitalize on a familiar name?
That said, the new The Day the Earth Stood Still deftly brings the space invader's message and the story's female protagonist into the 21st century. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) is warning Earthlings not of nuclear war but environmental catastrophe. Since our world is one of the few planets that can sustain complex life, humanity's poor stewardship must stop, even if it means extinction of the human species. His helper, Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), is no mere office girl as in the original but a professor of astrobiology at Princeton. Her field had largely been speculative until the moment Klaatu's glowing sphere, resembling an ice ball with a lava lamp core, touches down in Central Park.
Michael Rennie's Klaatu in the 1951 version was a serious figure but capable at least of ill-disguised amusement at the folly of man. Reeves is grim as the arctic night and tombstone pale, moving stiffly in a dark suit as he evades the clumsy efforts of the U.S. military to apprehend him. Unlike Rennie's more human-like Klaatu, this year's model has superhero powers. He can do amazing things with his fingers-fix broken phones, bring down Blackhawk helicopters in an explosion of software graphics.
But can he fix a movie short on buildup or suspense, poorly paced and relying on tedious, been-there-before SFX like that plague of silvery insects he loses on the world-winged avengers that chew up semi-trailers and devour entire cities with the click of the animator's mouse? Not a chance, Mr. Spaceman.
