Shoot First. Ask Questions Later.
Written: Feb 14 '09 (Updated Feb 14 '09)
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Pros: Some neat attention grabbers.
Cons: No outright flaws; it just doesn't excel anywhere.
The Bottom Line: A remade sci fi plot with issues modern and old affecting humanity. If there's nothing better playing, go see this one. Not every movie can be a classic.
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| topreviewerman's Full Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still |
The plot isn't new but generally follows that of 1951 The Day the earth Stood Still: Mysterious spacecraft sets down in Central Park disgorging emissary Klaatu. A misunderstanding requires a medic's attention and that of big robot GORT. Mankind on Earth have jeopardized their existence by their belligerent reaction. If Klaatu can be persuaded to effect some kind of work-around, perhaps, just perhaps, the world will be saved. THE END
OK, it's been updated some to accommodate modern times. The initial interspecies contact starts out as a touching scene but goes south awful fast, like in "Mars Attacks" only not so dramatic. Klaatu soon finds himself on the run, but where does an alien run to? He heads where millions have gone before, having suffered a mac attack. (I wish I were making this up.) There he has a tête à tête with an Americanized Chinese humanized alien settler who offers slim hope for mankind ever getting better. So the plan proceeds to take animals into a space ark to be preserved while the earth is cleansed. Do I mean that representative humans and animals will be preserved while the Earth is cleansed? Close. Leave out the humans. That's what the Earth is to be cleansed from.
Scientist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) pleads with Klaatu for mercy, but he says our leaders have been uncooperative. Then come the most noteworthy lines of the whole film. Those aren't the world leaders—the UN, the US President—, no, she will take him to the world leader. This I've got to see. I mean, the alien doesn't know any better. She can pick anyone she wants. After having suffered through another US presidential election where neither candidate looked all that appealing to me, and I felt that no matter how much I voted for "change," we'd probably end up with the same old thing, why, here one person in a single stroke can pick the "world leader" all by herself. This is really good material.
The "world leader" and Klaatu speak in the universal languages of music and mathematics, forming a bond. It remains to be seen by Klaatu whether Helen and her stepson Jacob speak the universal language of love, and so persuade him to at least try to call off the imminent attack. If he fails to save the princes from destruction, we are secure in the knowledge that at least the frogs and toads will be saved. Maybe they will change into princes some day.
We see bureaucratic and military ineptitude trying to neutralize GORT, and a lot of traipsing through the woods—a good staple in many a sci fi movie. Although this latest 2008 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" doesn't seem to excel in any place, it's a good run for a sci fi film. It's like a standby date: someone you can count on for a reliably good evening although you don't expect to get swept off your feet by her. Don't erase her from your book. When there's nobody else available, she might be just the one to call.
And yet. And yet. Sometimes you will be surprised. During the election one of the (Primary) candidates was running an ad about who you'd feel secure manning the crisis phone at night while you are asleep. In this movie the critical person is astrobiologist Helen in whose hands (along with Jacob's) the fate of humankind will rest. She's at home with him when the phone rings and she is told she'll be picked up on a matter of national urgency. Hers is not the kind of response one would expect from the ad. She has to be dragged away, although once involved she does pretty well.
Then there is the matter of Jacob's dinner. He is entrenched in a video game when it's dinner time and Helen must interrupt him. As his video character bites the dust he tells her, "Thanks. You just killed me." Helen replies that, good, now that the game's over, he can come join them for dinner.
Adults have these weird sets of priorities. Did you ever notice that? It's like these movie reviews I write. I know some of you just want me to review "the movie" meaning the action line with about as much depth as a video game, but I'm more into presenting a balanced picture that includes the archetypes the movie is based on. My advice to the reader whose interests are more restrictive, same as Helen's advice: Get over it.
The main archetype for this movie is found in the concluding words of the Old Testament. Every devout Jew knows the prophesy of the return of the prophet Elijah, and many Christians do too. For that matter there is a set of popular literature regarding Elijah's ascent into heaven in a fiery chariot being a reference to a spacecraft. But not every reader will be familiar with it, so I am going to quote it here.
Why am I quoting the Bible? I am not in the case of the ark and the Flood which are biblical stories referred to in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," because people are more familiar with those. It's just a couple verses I'm quoting, and I need to as a lot of people don't know them, and the movie archetype being based on them, how else can I communicate it? From the New Jewish Publication Society 2nd ed. of 1999 (NJPS) Tanakh, last two verses of the book of Malachi: "Lo, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before the coming of the awesome, fearful day of the Lord. He shall reconcile parents with children and children with their parents, so that, when I come, I do not strike the whole land with utter destruction." Elijah was the lone prophet who zapped the armies sent against him—see 2 Kings 1:6-15—, so he can be represented by robot GORT who aids Klaatu. The main point of the movie is that Helen and stepson Jacob be reconciled so averting utter destruction on the whole Earth. This movie is not a religious treatise but a work of art based on a religious story. What you do with it, if anything, is up to you, whether you are Jewish or Christian or no particular religion at all. I'm just pointing it out.
Now that we have the focus on reconciling parents and children, we can understand some of the finer points of the movie. First of all, is it pro-choice or right-to-life? It's both in an alien mind-bender kind of way. Analyzing the wounded being from the spaceship, the scientists determined that it was composed of three separate DNA structures. There was an outer cocoon-like shell which was of human DNA like a placenta enabling the creature to be born on Earth. Then there was an inner human body, Klaatu (Kenau Reeves), and finally an alien brain. In order for Klaatu to be born, the alien brain had to telepathically enlist the aid of the doctor to discard the mass of tissue surrounding it, aborting a "tissue mass" so to speak, in a private decision between alien brain and doctor just as Roe v. Wade allows between mother and doctor, the mother being an "alien" brain from the perspective of the fetus. And yet Klaatu was helped and nurtured to life by Helen. Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates) represented the pro-choice mother exerting absolute control over the invading creature while Helen was the pro-life mom nurturing and protecting it. Something tells me I'm not going to go back and see this movie again anytime soon. It's almost too much for my little mind.
The lie detector test administered to Klaatu doesn't help. The Roe v. Wade judges were unwilling to weigh in on when human life began, as philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders were undecided among themselves—to say nothing of presidential candidates. Klaatu was strapped to a polygraph machine and asked, "Are you human?" Finally, we get to hear it from the horse's mouth—sort of. His answer: "My body is." There you go! The right-to-lifers are right, a fetus is a human body, but the pro-choicers are right also, in some unspecified abstract way it's not human too. Great!
After being asked about a pending invasion of Earth, Klaatu terminated the interview in one of the most memorable polygraph sequences on film. Perhaps we've been asking the wrong questions. We might do better to ask how does the way we treat the preborn ensure the survival of our species.
Alien sex. This doesn't make the plot any better. In order for Klaatu to be born in a human placenta, his saucers had to procure a human DNA sample at some time. The movie shows this happening on Karakoram Mountain in India, near the Chinese border, in 1928 when a struggling climber reaches out his hand (phallic symbol) and touches a glowing orb. A sample of his skin is taken. That's the act that made Klaatu's birth possible.
Now, in the heated pro-choice vs. right-to-life debate, say we declare them both the winner here. The next question is what sex act made it possible? In our real life human situations, when a woman finds herself pregnant is it because of some obscure act that happened on a mountain in India many decades ago? No, probably something more recent than that, and closer to home (See the movie "Knocked Up.") The next question is, in terms of children and parents being reconciled to each other, the man involved in that act, where is he now? Is he like the president and vice president in "The Day the Earth Stood Still," at a "secure and undisclosed location"? Tough questions.
Klaatu himself takes on the role of the father preventing an invasion. When glancing at a blackboard full of calculations being worked on by Karl Barnhart, Nobel Peace Prize winner in Biological Altruism, Klaatu steps up to the board and scribbles the needed corrections. There is a well known story of Oppenheimer, the "father of the atom bomb," while working on the Manhattan Project, he was walking down the hall and glanced in a room with a blackboard full of equations in physics. He stepped up to the board and made a necessary correction on the spot, that was how smart he was. This atom bomb that he fathered saved the Allies from a costly invasion of Japan. Just another little trivial way this movie can play with one's mind.
The acting, the script, the plot, everything worked well; it just wasn't outstanding. Kenau Reeves in the role of Klaatu has received a lot of criticism for being emotionless, but I don't see it that way. He was less distracted by his emotions than are we humans, but he had them. In particular he was finding a human body hard to get used to. That and having to recover from his wound, I think, earns him a little slack. We can forgive an alien for not being Mr Sunshine in these circumstances.
I'm not really tempted to see this movie a second time, the first time through was enough. Life has its own problems. Movies are supposed to be an escape. And it works well enough at that, only suggesting larger issues. I offer my recommendations, just not my highest recommendations.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: If Your First Choice is Sold Out
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Epinions.com ID:
topreviewerman
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Member: Earl Gosnell
Location: Eugene, OR
Reviews written: 87
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
BSEE, U. of Cincinnati. Ordained minister, United Congregation of Friends. Poet Laureate, Longfellow, Colorado.
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