Phantom Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still

We haven’t seen it and don’t intend to. Why? Because you could tell from the trailer you were going to be lectured at. Message delivered. Ho hum. Special effects will be more of the same and Keanu Reeves ditto. Double-triple ho hum. Sitting through the TV ads during football games was plenty enough.

Here’s a link to the Rotten Tomatoes page on it for more actual reviews.

While the original, thoughtful and thoughtfully paced, The Day the Earth Stood Still carried a warning about a real threat – the potential for nuclear self-destruction – that the between-the-lines sci-fi of its day was reticent  to utter, this update would obviously hammer us into our multp[lex seats with a loud Earth-revenge effects based on the purely speculative voodoo science that is incessantly amplified by the cultural frenzy over climate change (nee global warming.) 

So, basically the original retains more relevance than the update.  Fancy that.

It underscores the ongoing trend of atrocious updates to classic sci-fi movies, more a sign of Hollywood’s aversion to risk than it’s desire to make good or original stories into films. (Take it from a struggling writer.) They’ll make them but that doesn’t we mean we have to go see them.

And Reeves, you are no Rennie.