The Day the Earth Stood Still

Release Year: 2008
Review: A remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' tries to market itself to a modern audience with state of the art special effects and a new message that would resonate with the current audience. The original film had an underlying messages about the cold war that was meant to speak to its generation. The current adaptation replaces these messages with the current crisis facing our environment. Unfortunately this message is far to heavy handed and preachy, coming off more as a green-peace propaganda piece, rather than a sci-fi blockbuster. Not only did it fail on delivering its message but it wasn't a fun movie either. If all you are looking for are aliens and explosions there are far better movies out there that will deliver it. The acting is painful, and the plot points felt generic and forced. It was if the film didn't know if it wanted to be a cerebral thriller with a message or a mindless alien flick with lots of eye candy and it ended up failing miserably at both. I admire its aim, but can't applaud its effort.
Rating: 2/5