The Day the Earth Stood Still

Keanu Reeves tops this adaptation of the seminal 1951 sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still with this 20th Century Fox production. Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) helms the story of an alien traveler, Klaatu (Reeves), who heads to Earth along with his bodyguard robot, Gort, to ...more

Despite primitive special effects and occasionally clunky storytelling, 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still ranks as a science fiction classic because it has a good underlying plot, interesting characters, and a meaningful moral. (Anyone taking issue with the term "clunky" clearly has forgotten long scenes of hat-wearing radio and T.V. announcers commenting on the proceedings, interminable second-unit shots of soldiers in military jeeps tracking a taxi, and Gort the Robot's offscreen and ...more

The Day the Earth Stood Still is pretty good as science fiction thrillers go, but sadly, there isn't much more to say about it. A remake of the 1951 classic, this film tries to increase the freaky factor with modern-day special effects and update the original movie's message about nuclear war with a vague moral about humankind's general mismanagement of the planet. This actually sounds like a fairly solid premise, but it doesn't always work -- even if you don't think about the massive shoes it's ...more