The Day The Earth Stood Still

Keanu has something to tell us, but will we listen?

When the original TDTESS was released in 1951, the human race needed saving from itself, and the galaxy needed saving from us. Now, it’s the Earth (which includes us, donchaknow) that’s threatened by us pesky people. So it seems timely to remake Robert Wise’s sci-fi classic in which a messenger from outer space comes to give us a pep talk. Come back, Klaatu, we need you!

Scott Derrickson’s remake starts promisingly enough, with the director doing his damnedest to build some back story, characters and tension before Klaatu makes his grand entrance on Central Park. He manages to create a fair amount of shock and awe as the intergalactic messenger arrives, and there’s something reassuring about the fact that Klaatu’s backup GORT is still essentially a giant laser-eyed robot.

But as Klaatu takes on human form, you realise something: it’s Keanu Reeves, and he’s playing to his strengths. So whereas original Klaatu Michael Rennie was charismatic and all-too-human, Keanu goes for enigmatic and alien. Which is ok up to a point- and he does the ‘I-can-stop-bullet-trains’ bits well. But then he has to become human as astrobiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith) and Professor Barnhardt (John Cleese?!) persuade him that “we can change”. He just about manages some T1000-esque bemusement at all the leaky-eyed bipeds, but still looks like he’s explaining his PC problems when the film reaches its emotional climax.

Connelly tries to generate enough emotion for both of them, but is hindered by a simplistic, stilted script. The supporting cast aren’t much help either - Jaden Smith seems to be in training for teen angst, Kathy Bates struggles with her character’s sudden change of heart, and Jon Hamm lurks in the background looking like he wants to have a shave and get back to Mad Men.

Derrickson does little to lift the pace as our heroes race to stop a plague of self-replicating nanobots from wiping humans off the face of the earth. Instead, he hammers home the climate change message and makes free and easy with CGI and clichés on the way to a finale that fails to move unless you screw up your eyes and think really hard about the environment.

IN SHORT

It’s all in the delivery, and a powerful message goes to waste in this unremarkable, lack-lustre remake. Jennifer Connelly and a giant robot do their best, but by the end you might want to shoot the messenger yourself. An Inconvenient Truth, anyone?