At first, The Day The Earth Stood Still seemed like it would make a great entertaining thriller for the whole family. However, don't be fooled, this movie is hardly worth the $10.50 I paid to see it. In fact, it was actually yet another one of Hollywood's attempts to shove "the Global Warming issue" down our throats (think The Happening). If you're expecting an action packed thriller full of apocalyptic gore, think again; it's rated PG-13.Here's a summary:
Keanu Reeves is a human looking alien named Klaatu who comes to the Earth peacefully in an attempt to warn us "that we must change our ways or we face sure death." Klaatu lands in a big glowing sphere right in the middle of New York's Central Park (how convenient). Some big, not very realistic, robot looking thing comes out of the sphere. The US military, New York's finest, and DHS surrounds the sphere and robot. As Klaatu exits the sphere, he starts walking towards a human in an attempt to make an obviously peaceful first-contact. The human sticks out her hand to peacefully greet Klaatu. As Klaatu reaches out to greet the woman, someone from the big bad US military shoots Klaatu in the chest and he falls to the ground. There's a commotion; Klaatu is rushed to some military installation where he actually undergoes surgery! After Klaatu's surgery, the big bad US military attempts to determine his reason for coming to the Earth through interrogation. Not surprisingly, Klaatu escapes.
An hour or so goes by; I lost interest at this point. All the while, the US military is trying to figure out what the big robot in Central Park is all about (I was trying to figure that out myself). The US military fails several times trying to blow up the robot. Klaatu is still running around loose in human society. The military moves the robot to a containment center in Virgina. At this point, the robot starts its "destroy-the-human-race" sequence by releasing trillions of little metallic like bugs that eat glass, metal, and human flesh. This swam of bugs starts making its way to New York City. After hangin' with us for a while, Klaatu realizes that humans aren't so bad after all so he races back to the sphere spaceship in Central Park. Once in Central Park, among a massive swarm of those ridiculous metallic bugs, he touches the sphere to stop the destruction sequence. The Earth is saved, the human race faces a life-changing realization on Global Warming, the end.
With respect to movies, I'm usually hard to please. But walking out of the theater last night, I couldn't help but overhear all of the whining complaints from just about every moviegoer. Glad to know I'm not alone!
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