The Day the Earth Stood Still (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)
by Scott Derrickson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Jaden Smith, Jennifer Connelly, John Cleese, Kathy Bates, Keanu ReevesDirector: Scott Derrickson
Brand: Fox
Cinematographer: David Tattersall
Producer: Erwin Stoff
Producer: Gregory Goodman
Producer: Marvin Towns Jr.
Producer: Paul Harris Boardman
Writer: David Scarpa
Writer: Edmund H. North
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 104 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: One Of The Greatest Apocalyptic Movies
Summary: 5 Stars
The apocalypse has seldom been so epic as in the 2008 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still, in which an alien envoy to Earth is assaulted by the military before getting a chance to deliver the 'coalition of civilizations''s message to the world, setting in motion a chain of Earth-shaking - and possibly catacylsmic - events. The 1951 original version (included in this set as a 'bonus disc', which I'll get to in a bit), had as its focus the growing threat of Earth's ballooning military might in the years following the development of the atomic bomb, and the reaction of extraterrestrial life to it. In the new version, the threat isn't one that the aliens are worried about affecting them directly: they've come on behalf of the planet, which they believe is in imminent danger of total envirornmental breakdown. Faced with this realization, they have two options - convince the human race to alter its path and thus stave off the disaster; or eliminate the root of the problem (humanity) and manage to save the planet and most of its species. The aliens's consideration of terminating humanity isn't based on hate or fear of humans, but on an icy logic: if the world falls, humanity dies anyway, and they've saved nothing in the end. If humanity falls first (and not that much earlier, on a cosmic scale, than it's looking to anyway) then the world and the rest of its lifeforms can still be saved. Part of the subtext of the movie is that the aliens presumably plan on offering humanity help in transitioning from an envirornmentally dangerous species to a more benign one (likely partly through pointing it in the right directions technologically) but the immediate military attack only re-inforces their earlier fears that humans are inherently violent, and incapable of being reasoned with.
The aliens's emmissary is Klaatu, excellently played by Keanu Reaves - the alien is not initially human but has been converted to human form; Reeves appears to be perceiving both more and less than an ordinary human, owing both to Klaatu's newness to his human body and to his inhuman mindframe, perhaps even to additional senses he's retained while in human form. Captured by the military and interrogated, he makes his escape from the army facility and ends up aided by a sympathetic scientist (Jennifer Connelly), who knows humanity's potentially facing destruction and hopes to convince the alien that the human race isn't as hopeless as his intial experiences wiith the military would make it seem. Connelly brings a sensitivity and compassion to the character, that, combined with the child-innocence of her stepson (played great by Jaden Smith) creates an interesting dynamic with the eerily both-human-and-inhuman Klaatu. The military has more to worry about than its escaped prisoner though. Its initial attack on Klaatu, in a truly awesome scene, awakens the GORT robot (in the '51 original it was the robot's own name, in this version it's an acronym the military gives it) from Klaatu's vessel, which "activates in the prescence of violence": a towering silver titan capable of stopping the amassed might of the U.S. army in its tracks as easily as a stampeding elephant might knock over a model train set.
Basically, the military is in a race to both contain and try to comprehend the situation, even as Connelly's character is in a race to change the alien's mind. It's a cerebral, emotional ride through destiny with many touching moments, including one (this one's easy to talk about without giving away any spoilers) in which Klaatu meets with a second alien, one who's been living among humanity silently observing for decades. Although this second alien agrees with the logic of extinguishing the human race before the whole planet falls (and even ends up nudging Klaatu in that direction as he struggles to make his decision), he nonetheless refuses to vacate Earth when offered a chance: in his decades on Earth he's come to love the human race in spite of all the flaws he sees in it, has even become part of a family; and he prefers to stay and die with humanity if that's the way events have to play out.
The movie truly keeps it up in the air as to how things are going to end up, and with great performances, outstanding special effects, cool concepts and a riveting atmosphere of suspense that starts early and doesn't let up, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a new classic and easily one of the most unjustly maligned films in recent years.
Moving on, we also have the 1951 original in here. Some may think it's dated, but this broke a lot of ground in its day and still holds up well now, even without tas much of an epic feel or awesome visuals (actually, the relatively few special effects that were in the film were very well done at the time, and certain scenes, including those that capture Klaatu's ship at a distance, hold up uncannily well even today). For one thing, the remastering job on this was perfect, it looks and sounds great, looks and sounds for the most part like something that was filmed very recently, crystal clear. It's got a great cerebral vibe to it (although I thought it lacked some of the emotion of the newer version) and the fact that the two movies focus on very different themes (the war threat in '51, the envirornmental theme in '08) is a plus: there's no point remaking a movie - especially a good one - if you're just going to do it scene-for-scene and shot-by-shot; with the two versions here, even though they have the same root of an alien emmissary coming to warn the Earth and being attacked without hesitation on landing, there are a lot of differences too. Michael Rennie does a fine job as Klaatu, playing the role a bit differently than Reeves did. The Rennie version seems to adapt to being human with all its idiosyncracies very quickly (some might say too quickly, but perhaps this version of the character was more 'trained' for the mission, or wasn't as vastly different an alien: one gets the impression that Reeves's Klaatu may have originally had a form almost unfathomable to humans) and blends in easily; the Reeves Klaatu goes through a lot of turmoil as he adjusts to the mental and physical differences of having transformed into another species, of another culture. Both actors played their respective takes on the Klaatu character very well. In places, the '51 version seems a bit stiff and subdued, but the points it loses it makes right back in innovation and effective undercurrents. Overall, with both versions in the same release you can't go wrong: two very different (but both good) takes on an excellent idea.
Summary of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Two-Disc Widescreen Edition)
DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL - DVD MovieImpressive special effects are the key selling point for this big-budget remake of Robert Wise's classic 1951 science fiction parable about an alien visitor who delivers a chilling ultimatum to the leaders of the world. Keanu Reeves, who seemed ideal at first blush but ultimately turns into another case of miscasting, steps in for Michael Rennie as intergalactic watchdog Klaatu, who with his robot Gort (now super-sized), promises global destruction unless the powers that be unless drastic measures are undertaken regarding the Earth's environmental issues (or so one assumes). Jennifer Connelly is largely wasted in the Patricia Neal role of scientist/single mom assigned to study Klaatu, who offers a somewhat chilly father figure to her son (a grating Jaden Smith). Connelly isn't the only fine actor in the cast left standing idle while director Scott Derrickson's effects team constructs eye-popping scenes of wholesale mayhem; Mad Men's Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, John Cleese and Rob Knepper are all adrift in the aimless script by David Scarpa, which never even fully explains why Klaatu is so bent on blowing us to smithereens. That lack of focus, as well as the B-movie quality of the dialogue (say what you will about the effects in the Wise version, but the film was polished from top to bottom), all help to cement what science fiction fans have been muttering about the film since its inception; the original film needed no high-tech updating --Paul Gaita
Stills from The Day the Earth Stood Still (Click for larger image)
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