The Day the Earth Got Bored

Things that have the potential to be cool:

1. Keanu Reeves (e.g., The Devil’s Advocate)

2. Jennifer Connelly (e.g., Labyrinth)

3. Movies about alien invasions (e.g., Independence Day) 

4. Movies about scary things hurtling to Earth (e.g., Deep Impact) 

5. Movies about how we’re destroying the environment (e.g., The Day After Tomorrow)

6. Movies about the end of the world (e.g., Children of Men)

The 2008 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still contains elements #1-6. And some other potentially cool things too, like evil clouds of dust, and cartoonishly inefficient U.S. military leaders, and Jon Hamm.

And yet this remake is not, itself, cool. At all.

Instead, it’s slow. And dreary. And devoid of any entertainment value that I could perceive. As the closing credits rolled, I tried to think of any reason that I could recommend that someone see it. But the only audience segment that I could imagine it appealing to is hardcore Keanu Reeves fans. But honestly, even they’d be better off just watching The Matrix for the millionth time.

Of course, the movie might also have some appeal for old-school sci-fi fans who don’t mind seeing butchered remakes of classic films. I’ve never seen the entirety of the original 1951 film, (which by the way had some seriously awesome posters). But I know it was designed to touch on its audience’s deep-set Cold War-era fears. The remake doesn’t have that option, so it attempts a contemporary environmental message: If we humans don’t get ourselves in gear and listen to Al Gore, aliens will send their evil dust clouds over to eat us. [Note to self: Buy recycling bin.]

The thing is, I really wanted to enjoy this movie. I wanted to either have fun, á la Cloverfield, or be creeped out, á la the Tom Cruise version of The War of the Worlds, or at least get to sit back and be amused by Keanu Reeves for a couple of hours. Instead, I spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen. “Ooh,” I’d think, “they’re driving to a McDonald’s in New Jersey. Maybe now some big dramatic scene will take place.” And then, still holding out hope, I’d think, “Okay, now they’re driving through the woods evading cops; maybe we’ll get a cool chase scene, or some interesting dialogue, or some emotive acting.” And then, getting slightly desperate, I’d think, “Okay, fine, now they’re driving to John Cleese’s house and he and Keanu are doing a Good-Will-Hunting-like set of chalkboard calculations; maybe we’ll get to see some fun bonding.”

But my expectations, which weren’t even particularly high, were never fulfilled. The only plot thread that I found even kind of engaging was the difficult relationship between the Jennifer Connelly character and her 10-year-old stepson, who was mourning his father’s recent death in Iraq. But that subplot got such little screen time that it wound up being irrelevant in the face of the overall blahness that was this movie.

Instead, mostly it’s just about people driving Keanu around. And if I’d wanted to watch that for two hours, I’d have Netflixed Speed.