The Day the Earth Stood Still

An average sci-fi film with an idea and a message, but not everyone is necessarily going to be in the mood for it. Keanu Reeves impressed me the most in the film - he plays the alien in such a way that he really looks perfectly "out of it" most of the time - and I was also looking forward to John Cleese. Even though I knew his role wouldn't be the biggest... I wasn't expecting such a bark :-/ The good thing about this film is the quality visual effects, the bad thing is definitely the annoying stepson and after him the sometimes boring plot. Basically, three stars. (07/14/2010)

This is how it turns out when the current author takes on a remake of a film from 1951, which was also directed by Robert Wise, which is a slightly different league after all. Scott Derrickson has two excellent horror films to his credit, but this is a classic Hollywood wannabe B-movie, where there is too much emphasis on pathos and emotions that have been seen so many times that you simply ignore them rather than let them influence you. In the 50s, this was a popular theme, but not anymore in the new millennium. Moreover, Spielberg had "War of the Worlds" here, which at least had some sense of action. (03/27/2014)

This really was a failure. Visually weak, retarded ideas, it flashes here and there is a decent atmosphere, but otherwise the sky is gray and no rain falls from it. The frowning Reeves and his Golem bring a message from the stars, but they find themselves in the middle of a flood of clichés from traditional disaster films, including the stupid family crisis of a beautiful astrobiologist. The result is a confused ride from place to place and boring chatter about humanity to the sound of Bach and the machine gun cannonade of the US ARMY. And when there's nothing to show, we get an unraveling as if from a goofy hippie trip. This is not about simplicity of thought, but rather simplicity of presentation. Derrickson tripped up nicely with this, and his version of the sci-fi classic is neither a sexy spectacle nor a film with a solid idea. It is worth considering that in terms of balance and the presentation of a simple agitating idea, the new version cannot compete with the original whatsoever. (12/08/2008)

A great old-school sci-fi (in very nice visual packaging) unfortunately with a typical ending about the hope than human kind can change. I haven’t seen the original, but in my eyes Derrickson did an excellent job maintaining the idea and the feeling of the original (I’ll certainly have a look at that to confirm my thoughts), which has a timeless theme. Moreover, Keanu Reeves exceeded my expectations massively because in truth I couldn’t imagine him in a role like this. For me the best scene of the movie was the ingenious beginning which was very reminiscent of The Thing in terms of atmosphere. (01/21/2009)

A big film, but with very little content. The story tries to look as spectacular as possible, but in reality it’s surprisingly mediocre and bland throughout, best evidenced by the emotionally utterly cold finale. So the only thing really worth mentioning is Keanu Reeves as the alien and a couple of visually impressive scenes that at least kept me awake for 100 minutes. Otherwise, just slightly above average sci-fi nonsense that has absolutely no chance in today's competition. (08/27/2012)