The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) review

Plot 65%

A remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Basically the same, it just updates it a little. They added one subplot, and it's kind of pointless, and the resolution is a little cheesy.

VFX 75%

The nanobot swarm is the coolest effects sequence in the movie, but everything else is just the same old cgi stuff you've seen in countless other movies.Gort is cool, but when he arrives I wasn't thinking "f**king awesome, badass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!", instead I was thinking "oh, there's Gort, nice cgi, hmmmmm".

SFX 50%

I can't even remember the musical score and the sound FX were nothing special. Average.

Acting 52%

The two leads are both popular and charismatic people, but they're are not as good acting-wise as the actors in the original movie. The little kid is annoying, he doesn't really have a purpose (just some plot device, but the payoff is a little cheesy like I said above). There are no real "characters" in this movie as the people are just there to move forward the plot, and that's it.

Violence 0%

I think it would be cooler if they made it R. Would have more impact.

Overall 50%

It's watchable, but average. You will only see it once.

The Good

*Klaatu mentions we are only one of a few planets in the Universe able to support life. I thought that was cool.

*The nanobots eating everything in their path was a cool sequence.

*Gort kept the same design as the original, but he was bigger and meaner.

*"Klaatu barada nikto" (though you only hear it briefly)

*John Cleese.

The Bad

*It was kind of boring.

*The original was better - it had a better script, better score, better pacing, etc.

*Original Gort seemed more badass to me, even for the 50s, he made a far more spectacular entrance (yes, cgi cannot equal good filmmaking).

*We never got to find out more about the aliens. That sucked. *Micheal Rennie pwns Keanu Reeves (Reeves just acts like a robot)*Why did we not see inside the spaceship? Even the original showed us that.*Plotholes - why do aliens need to kill humans, surely there must be a better solution? In the original, they wanted to kill us because we'd become a threat to galactic peace because we keep blowing the shit out of eachother (ie Cold War).I wouldn't waste your money at the cinema. Rent it on dvd, it's a pretty dull movie.