The Day The Earth Stood Still: Thoughtful, Yet Familiar review
Keanu Reeves even at the best of times is a limited, if engaging, actor. But the role of a dispassionate, mysterious outsider suits his persona remarkably well.
As a general principle, the Hollywood bandwagon dishes out two kinds of Sci-Fi. One is the big-budget slam-bang actioner about aliens invading our hapless planet (think Independence Day, War of the Worlds, MIB etc). The other, rarer, offering is the cerebral spectacle (Kubrick's 2001, Blade Runner). The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the cautionary1951 sci-fi film is a bit of both.
So here you get Keanu Reeves playing an alien named Klatu, a visitor to our planet who represents a cluster of intergalactic civilizations .His mission: exterminate mankind to save the planet. He possesses potent telepathic powers and even has a gigantic robot named Gort to assist him in his destructive crusade. It is up to plucky single step-mother and brilliant scientist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) to intercept his mission.
The plot sounds a bit dated (how could it not, being as it is the remake of a 1951 movie?). But director Scott Derrickson decides to keep events low key and slightly off-balance thereby creating a mood closer to Bladerunner than Independence Day. He also keeps Klatu's real motives mysterious up to a point in the process heightening the tension and uncertainty. Another positive is the judicious use of impressive CGX effects. In lesser hands the viewer would have been subjected to nothing short of a full blown spectacle. But Derrickson eschews magnitude of effects in favor of introspection. At times it may produce some clunky lines and result in too much of emotions running loose, but for the most part the dialogues are sincere and the interactions do more than just move the plot along.
Keanu Reeves even at the best of times is a limited, if engaging, actor. But the role of a dispassionate, mysterious outsider suits his persona remarkably well. He resists emoting in even a single scene which strangely makes his alien character seem more consistent and realistic. He reminded me of David Bowie in the little seen but much acclaimed The Man who Fell to Earth (1976), where Bowie's alien too had a similar predicament. He felt an attachment to humanity, despite himself.
Connelly as the determined but vulnerable scientist also performs adequately. And Kathy Bates as the US Secretary of Defense, stands out in the scene where she is taking orders from the U.S. President over the phone to launch an ill advised attack on the enemy. Tellingly, the Pres is never shown, he is in hiding J. And from what little is learnt about him here, he does not seem like the best strategist on this planet.
One can continue drawing parallels with reality. The blizzard threatening to destroy our civilization is also a symbol of an impending (nuclear?) holocaust. But the film does not dwell on them. Ultimately, Day tries to be a timeless, cautionary, albeit familiar parable of mankind threatening to destroy itself.
[rating:3]
Comments( 4 )
Hi Aniruddha, I think except when Helen
Hi Aniruddha, I think except when Helen begs to the Alien to spare mankind, it's good. Not path breaking but certainly engaging and mostly unpredictable at least to those who haven't seen the 1951 movie.
Another film that certifies to the
Another film that certifies to the hopeless egocentrism of the humankind. In the golden age of (American) Science Fiction, such invasion by the alien plots were common among the silver screen adventurers. But serious writers cautiously evaded them as, Asimov correctly put it in his autobiographies, aliens were to be shown and had to be killed by an American army (be it soldiers or scientists) fighting against the USSR (in a hot or cold war). Speculative adventure in some real alien psyche (or in extraterrestrial biology) was highly discouraged by the Sci Fi mag editors. American (say, world) readers wouldn't have liked to go out of their anthropocentric ideas, they argued. Hence, an Asimov wrote a galactic Empire series consisting of fourteen novels showing the conflicts between many human clans, with no trace of any alien in the known universe; or a Frank Herbert wrote a six book Dune chronicles where human beings (in their original form, or highly modified) only ruled the galaxy.
But, silver screen demands more. It demands spectacle. So, aliens were introduced there since the beginning, along the lines of Welles' War of the Worlds. Written works may demand introspection or discursiveness. There was no such demand for the silver screen. And, however, since its inception Sci Fi on silver screen was always clubbed together with horror, fantasy and sometimes fairy tale; but always on the negative. It was, perhaps, Spielberg who first showed an alien in a friendly way.
Cold war has ended. USSR never existed for today's globalized generation. But, the US has not stopped fighting, it has not shed the American burden of global welfare from its shoulder. So, aliens has not ceased to exist for their people, for us (who swear by their standards). In fact, aliens have proliferated in number. Such films are but allegorical justifications for their eradication.
Long since we have not seen a really
Long since we have not seen a really good non-US type Sci Fi from Europe; or from any other section of the earth indeed.
The topic you raise is worthy of an
The topic you raise is worthy of an article in itself. Many Hollywood sci-fi epics both good and bad, have USA-mania written all over it. Even Kubrick's great 2001:A Space Odyssey had the American flag in the space station. 2001 proves US chest thumping does not necessarily make for a bad movie. Then you had Bladerunner which was an interesting subversion of the whole "US save the world theme", as the country was depicted as a murky and dingy place. Then you had Alien/Aliens shot entirey in outer space.
As far as European films go I cannot think of a single sci-fi film in the past decade which can be called great. But will be happy to be be proved wrong...