The Day A Movie Bored Me to Death: Save Your Money and Don’t See “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Unless you like being lectured on how man, most especially the U.S., is destroying the earth. And you can get that free every day from a lib!

[Note: I don't usually do movie reviews, but in this case I am making an exception. With these economic hard times brought on by the advent of the Obama Administration people need to save their hard earned money to buy a better place in the coming bread lines]

I’m a big fan of the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” so I took a chance and went to see the 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves. I wish I had waited for it to play for free on cable.

Rather than give people an entertaining sci-fi scare, this film proceeded to be nothing more than the usual Hollywood slicked up preaching we can get for free every day.

Whether it was in the opening scenes where the astro biologist played by Jennifer Connelly was being removed from her home with overtones of national security excesses or the constant refrain that man is destroying the earth it was all too much. On top of that the U.S. military was portrayed as a bunch of wild reckless shoot first cowboys whose actions were going to get us all killed. How original is that?

The film did offer a really neat 30 foot tall robot GORT but he had so few scenes and ended up turning himself into a swarm of planet devouring metal locusts which just didn’t have the same scare power. (Sorry if I spoiled the plot for you but you really do need to save your money)

Towards the end of the film Kathy Bates who played the U.S. Secretary of Defense (President Obama had gone into hiding — voted present?) looked at her watch which had stopped. I can imagine quite a few in the theater were looking at their watches too and wondering: how much longer is this tripe going to go on?

Next time I’ll read a review before I go to a film I am unsure about:

• ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ doesn’t do original justice, USA Today: “a good portion of this sci-fi disaster movie is unintentionally comical. And the parts that aren’t funny are just plain dull.”
• The Day the Earth Stood Still: Alienating Time Mag: “The new director is a dope named Scott Derrickson, who has teamed with a morally deaf screenwriter named David Scarpa, and they have made what must be the worst major release in what may be the most disastrous year in recent Hollywood history… Suffice it to say that these morons have, quite simply, turned The Day the Earth Stood Still on its head and what’s falling out of its pockets in that upended state is a stream of junk.”

They didn’t even have the classic line: “Klaatu Barada Nickto.” Fortunately, the original played again on Turner Movie Classics the other night and I got to see the classic scene with Patricia Neal below:

When will theater goers get a bailout from all these bad, preachy Hollywood dolts?