It’s hard to top a classic.

2008’s reboot of The Day the Earth Stood Still makes a game effort at living up to the original film’s legacy, but stumbles over what has by now become an overly familiar alien-invasion premise.

While the 1951 original had deep impact as a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear annihilation, this remake declines to update the tale by delivering a laser-focused indictment of environmental degradation. Instead, Day opts for a generic, earthlings-are-paranoid-dimwits message that fails to tell us much we don’t already know.

The movie stars Keanu Reeves, who serves up a low-affect variation on his stoic Neo persona from the Matrix movies to portray mission-driven alien Klaatu. Jennifer Connelly (Hulk, Blood Diamond) plays somber scientist Helen Benson, tasked with studying the spaceman. It’s hard to top a classic.

2008’s reboot of The Day the Earth Stood Still makes a game effort at living up to the original film’s legacy, but stumbles over what has by now become an overly familiar alien-invasion premise.

While the 1951 original had deep impact as a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear annihilation, this remake declines to update the tale by delivering a laser-focused indictment of environmental degradation. Instead, Day opts for a generic, earthlings-are-paranoid-dimwits message that fails to tell us much we don’t already know.

The movie stars Keanu Reeves, who serves up a low-affect variation on his stoic Neo persona from the Matrix movies to portray mission-driven alien Klaatu. Jennifer Connelly (Hulk, Blood Diamond) plays somber scientist Helen Benson, tasked with studying the spaceman.
Klaatu assumes human form after emerging from a giant, glowing sphere that lands in New York’s Central Park. The alien comes in peace, desiring only to address the United Nations with a stern warning for earthlings to correct their destructive ways.

He is instead shot, sedated, surgically probed and interrogated by uncomprehending U.S. government officials. In charge: Kathy Bates as the bewildered Secretary of Defense. She speaks slowly to Klaatu, as if the superior space being might have trouble understanding English.

Meanwhile, Klaatu’s protector, the eye-beamed, 28-foot-tall robot Gort, is taken into custody. The mute machine soon overwhelms its captors by unleashing a horde of insectoid bots that wreak worldwide havoc even as pulsating orbs encapsulate earthbound life forms for future reference.