tek's rating: ¾

The Day the Earth Stood Still (PG-13)
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Caution: spoilers.

This is a 2008 remake of the 1951 film of the same name, which I think I saw at some point. Keanu Reeves plays an alien named Klaatu, who comes to Earth on a mission which isn't revealed explicitly until some time into the movie, but I'm going to spoil it anyway. He's here to save the Earth. To save it from humanity, which means wiping out humanity to save all the other species, because we've been destroying the planet. Aliens have been watching and hoping we'd reverse course, but at this point they've decided it's too late. Meanwhile, Jennifer Connelly plays an astrobiologist named Helen Benson, who is one of several scientists brought in by the government when Klaatu's spaceship is first discovered heading toward Earth. After his arrival, she helps him get away from the military (led by Kathy Bates as the U.S. Secretary of Defense). Helen is stepmother to a boy named Jacob (Jaden Smith), who, despite Helen's obvious love for him, feels like his father left him alone when he died a year ago. Anyway, Helen eventually ends up driving Klaatu around to different places, along with Jacob (who really shouldn't be with them, but apparently Helen couldn't leave him with a neighbor like she did when she was first taken in by the government). At one point, they go to see a professor played by John Cleese, who wants to convince Klaatu that humanity is worth saving. But they don't stay with him long before the military shows up, and they have to go on the run again. So it's up to Helen to convince Klaatu to call off the impending destruction of the human race, which will be carried out by a giant CGI robot that the military dubs "GORT".

Will Dr. Benson succeed? Will humanity be saved? I won't tell you. I'll just say I wouldn't be particularly heartbroken if she failed. I mean, I like humanity and all, but we are just one species on this planet, and we are pretty much ruining it for all the others. Fair's fair, I mean c'mon. I'm not saying I endorse genocide, by any means, just... if it's one species' survival vs. all other life on Earth, I think the aliens have a point. And I really wish it didn't take something like the threat of humanity's extinction to make us change our ways and protect the environment, but clearly, in the real world, even that's not enough for some people. (Sure, we don't have aliens threatening us, but we are threatened with extinction by our own actions.) So, I dunno. The movie did not do well critically, but I thought it was okay. Not something I ever need to see again, but I didn't mind watching it once.


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