The Day The Earth Stood Still

The day the Earth stood still. An interesting word there – still. Ponder over it. Like films being made on aliens invading the Earth, specifically Manhattan, to warn us, still. Like this film itself being an update of a 1951-version by the same name; the Earth is still around, so are we, still. Like how many times can the completely-still Keanu Reeves replay Neo/The One of Matrix, still. Like it can still get wonderful actors like Connelly and Bates to shore it up.

There are hints of an overtone here, hinting at the general paranoia against aliens/outsiders, leading to convictions without trials. And we humans are obviously very, very bad for Earth. However, this is not the film you need those lessons from.

At one point, the “alien in human body” with the unfortunate name of Klaatu (Reeves) asks Kathy Bates in the unfortunate role of the US Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson: “Do you speak for the entire human race?” She replies: “I represent the President of the United States.”

Her hair in an untidy bun, attired in dowdy tweeds and an ugly chunky necklace, Bates is Condoleeza Rice having a very bad Donald Rumsfeld day. Which she spends walking around, gravely shaking her head, and repeating: “I represent the United States President… We have to do something.” (At one point you even hope this is a spoof, but a look at Reeves’s stony visage puts paid to that.)

Connelly is an astrobiologist – yes there is a thing such as it – who is whisked away from her home in the middle of the night by what looks like a mini-defence force herself. A panicky government has sought her out to prepare for a “sphere moving at very high speed and about to collide into Manhattan in precisely 78 minutes”. She is among a group of scientists summoned, which includes a bearded fellow by the name of Yusuf who never reappears after establishing the broad-based nature of the threat the world is facing.

However, Connelly’s biggest problem might be actually much closer home, and that’s a pesky little son who knows neither the value of discipline nor the virtue of fear. The best of Jaden Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness has been turned into the worst in him here. Connelly looks soulfully on, as only Connelly can.

Finally turning to Reeves. He passed it off in Matrix and even Constantine but let’s just pray this zombie act in black gear is his last. Mercifully he is an alien here who purportedly hasn’t encountered emotions before. At the first sight of “love”, he does a rethink. Bet you can’t tell.

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