Movie Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still

In this sci-fi thriller mysterious alien spheres start showing up around the world landing in various locations. One very large orb lands in Central Park in New York City. As the military and other key leaders show up to discover what this strange object is it opens and 2 life forms appear from the light. One turns out to be a highly volatile alien that they name GORT. He can disable any technology and destroy anything in its path. The other alien lifeform turns out to be Keanu Reeves. After some long and drawn out interrogations and boring conversations we realize that Keanu's character is trying to warn mankind that their time on earth has come to an end. Apparently these aliens view Earth as a sort of hot commodity in the universe and in an attempt to preserve it they will destroy humans. It was at this point that the movie moved from sci-fi thriller to a preachy, "go green" advertisement.

Despite some cool scenes of visual effects the overall film seemed very unoriginal. And not just because it was a remake. The dialogue, the scenes and even the way it was filmed reminded me of previous movies. There were times that I was reminded of Independence Day, The Happening, The Matrix and Cloverfield. The whole thing just felt like leftovers from these previous movies. The really funny thing is to compare the movie poster's picture of Keanu Reeves with the actual face of Keanu in the movie. There was definitely some work done in Photoshop for those posters because he has definitely aged.

To sum up I would rename this movie, The Day the Plot Stood Still.