The Day Earth Stood Still movie review

click here for Latest movie reviews

Directed by: Scott Derrickson Produced by: Erwin Stoff, Paul Harris Boardman Written by: David Scarpa Starring: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith Music by: Tyler Bates Cinematography: David Tattersall Editing by: Wayne Wahrmann Distributed by: 20th Century Fox Release date: December 12, 2008 Running time: 104 min Country: United States Language: English

Movie Review

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 science fiction film, a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. Directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, the film updates Cold War themes like nuclear warfare to the more contemporary issue of global warming. It was released on a rollout schedule beginning December 10, 2008, screening in both conventional theaters and IMAX screens by December 19.

Plot

Set at a Catholic school in the Bronx, it centers on a nun who grows suspicious when a priest begins taking too much interest in the life of a young black student. Is she being overly protective or not protective enough? And can she work within the system to discover the truth? Written by Sherman (courtesy of Broadway.com) It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence. Written by Miramax Films

Cast

* Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien messenger in human form. Reeves dislikes remakes, but was impressed by the script, which he deemed a reimagining. He enjoyed the original film as a child and became fonder of it as an adult when he understood how relevant it was, but liked this interpretation because it lacked the contradictory message of Klaatu "laying down the law almost as though the alien had the bigger stick".Reeves acknowledged his Klaatu is "inverted" from the original, starting "sinister and tough" but becomes "more human", whereas the original was "more human than human" before revealing his "big stick" in his ending speech.He compared the remake's Klaatu to the wrathful God who floods the world in the Old Testament, but is gentle and forgiving by the time of the New Testament.He spent many weeks advising the script, trying to make Klaatu's transition from alien in human form to one who appreciates their emotions and beliefs subtle and nuanced.Derrickson said although Reeves would not use actions "that are highly unusual or highly quirky", he nevertheless "keeps you aware of the fact that this being you're walking through this movie with is not a human being".At Reeves' insistence, the classic line "Klaatu barada nikto" was added to the script after initially being omitted.The line was recorded many times, and it was decided to combine two versions; one where Reeves just said it, and a reversed version of a recording where he said the line backwards, creating an alien effect. * Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson, a famed astrobiologist at Princeton University who is recruited by the government to study Klaatu. Connelly was Derrickson's first choice for the part.She is a fan of the original film and felt Patricia Neal's original portrayal of Helen was "fabulous", but trusted the filmmakers with their reinterpretation of the story and Helen, who was a secretary in the original.Connelly emphasized Helen is amazed when she meets Klaatu, as she never believed she would encounter a sentient alien like him after speculating on extraterrestrial life for so long.Connelly was dedicated to understanding her scientific jargon, with Seth Shostak stating she did "everything short of writing a NASA grant application". * Jaden Smith as Jacob, Helen's rebellious eight-year old stepson. His conflict with his stepmother was worsened by the death of his father, and initially dislikes Klaatu, believing he is a potential stepfather. Jacob replaces the character of Bobby (Billy Gray) from the original, and his relationship with Helen was written as a microcosm of how Klaatu comes to see humanity – the alien sees their cold and distant relationship as proof positive of normal human behavior, and their reconciliation forces him to change his mind. Smith said he found Jacob difficult to play because he felt the character an "opposite" of his personality. Smith had met Reeves before on the set of The Matrix sequels with his mother Jada Pinkett-Smith. * John Cleese cameos as Professor Barnhardt, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who specializes in the evolutionary basis of altruism. Helen takes Klaatu to him to further change his mind. The role was the most difficult to cast, and eventually the filmmakers decided to approach Cleese, noting "Who would you rather make the argument [to Klaatu] for mankind than John Cleese?" Stoff had met Cleese a few times beforehand and had noted his intellect.The actor was surprised the filmmakers were interested in him, and decided playing a dramatic role would be easier than to play a manic, comedic one at his age. He was often reminded to speed up his dialogue so Reeves would not appear in sync with normal human speech patterns.Cleese said he is not interested in extraterrestrial life because he often philosophizes about the purpose of life and why humans are distracted by trivial matters.Cleese had experience writing equations he did not understand, as he had spoken Russian in A Fish Called Wanda without knowing its meaning.The crew enjoyed working with Cleese and were sad when he finished his part. * Jon Hamm as Dr. Michael Granier, a NASA official who recruits Helen into his scientific team investigating Klaatu. Granier is fascinated by Klaatu, but is torn between his official obligation to detain the alien and protect his country. Hamm acknowledged science fiction was a niche genre when the original film was made, and that it used science fiction to make topical issues more approachable. Hamm had the same feelings for this remake.Originally, Hamm's character was French and named Michel.Although he is interested in math and science, Hamm found his technical dialogue difficult and had to film his lines repeatedly. * Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson, the United States Secretary of Defense. Bates had only two weeks to film her scenes, so she often requested Derrickson act out her lines so she would directly understand his aims for her dialogue, rather than interpret vague directions.

Production

Development: In 1994, 20th Century Fox and Erwin Stoff had produced the successful Keanu Reeves film Speed. Stoff was at an office at the studio when he saw a poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still, which made him ponder a remake with Reeves as Klaatu.By the time David Scarpa started writing his draft in 2005,Thomas Rothman was in charge of Fox and felt a responsibility to remake the film.Scarpa felt everything about the original film was still relevant, but changed the allegory from nuclear war to environmental damage because "the specifics of [how] we now have the capability to destroy ourselves have changed".Scarpa noted the recent events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 informed his mindset when writing the screenplay.He noted "People don't want to be preached to about the environment. We tried to avoid having our alien looking out over the garbage in the lake and crying a silent tear," à la the 1970s Keep America Beautiful adverts. He scrapped Klaatu's speech at the conclusion of the story because "audiences today are [un]willing to tolerate that". Director Scott Derrickson admired the original film's director Robert Wise, whom he met as a film student. He generally dislikes remakes, but he enjoyed the script – which he decided was a retelling of the story and not a true remake. He also explained The Day the Earth Stood Still is a not a widely seen classic film, unlike The Wizard of Oz, which he would not bother remaking.Derrickson's benchmark was Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Klaatu was made more menacing than in the original, because the director felt he had to symbolize the more complex era of the 2000s.There was debate over whether to have Klaatu land in Washington, D.C. as with the original, but Derrickson chose New York City because he liked the geometry of Klaatu's sphere landing in Central Park.Derrickson did not also write in Gort's back-story, which was absent from the script he read, noting the accusations of fascism at the original film regarding Klaatu's warning that if Earth was not civil, Gort's powerful robotic race would destroy them all. Astronomer Seth Shostak served as scientific consultant on the film, reviewing the script several times for errors, and gave suggestions for making the scientists less dry. "Real scientists don't describe an object entering the solar system as 'notable for the fact that it was not moving in an asteroidal ellipse, but moving at nearly three times ten to the seventh meters per second'. More likely, they would say that there was 'a goddamned rock headed our way!'" He also noted the scientists should refer to one another by a first name basis.

Filming

Filming took place from December 12, 2007 to March 19, 2008 at Vancouver Film Studios. The film was originally scheduled for release on May 9, 2008, but it was delayed to December 12, 2008 because filming commenced later than scheduled.The shoot was unaffected by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike;by then Scarpa had written forty drafts of the script.The film was mostly shot on sets because it was winter in Vancouver. As Fox had a mandate to become a carbon neutral company by 2011, The Day the Earth Stood Still's production had an environmentally friendly regimen. "Whether it was because of this movie thematically or it was an accident of time, there were certain things production-wise we've been doing and been asked to do and so on," said Erwin Stoff.To prevent the wasting of paper, concept art, location stills and costume tests were posted on a website created by the production for crew members to look up. Costumes were kept for future Fox productions or given to homeless shelters, rather than thrown away. Hybrid vehicles were used and crew members had to turn off their car engines if they sat in their vehicles for more than three minutes. Derrickson was fascinated by color schemes. He chose blue-green and orange as the primary colors for The Day the Earth Stood Still. The missile silo the military convert for experiments on Gort emphasized gray and orange, which was inspired by an image of lava flowing through a gray field. Derrickson opted to shoot on traditional film, and rendered the colors in post-production to make them more subtle, for realism. To film Barnhardt and Klaatu writing equations on a blackboard, general relativity sums were drawn by Marco Peloso from the University of Minnesota, and William Hiscock of Montana State University in light pencil. Keanu Reeves and John Cleese drew over these in chalk.