It's difficult for me to describe the level of abject capitulation of the remake of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. It is the most shamelessly invertebrate portrayal of humans facing doom that I have ever seen on film. If you are going with the expectations of seeing anything updated in this remake, you're bound to be disappointed. Why? Because there is a level of thought which is completely absent from the new version, and that is the matter of compassion.
It's probably more accurate to say that compassion is an afterthought and absent from the logic of the story on both sides. In the original, the alien Klatu spent a good deal of time working to gain an audience of world leaders. He wasn't in any sort of hurry. Reeves' Klatu, is rather heartlessly delivering an ultimatum after a day and a half. He's about as comfortable in his human body as the bug from Men In Black.
Even from the perspective of a Hobbsian bargain with the robot Leviathan Gort, the offer isn't even made. In the original film, the one-eyed robot was a fail-safe policeman under which all of the civilized nations had voluntarily placed their law-enforcement. Instead of administering justice to the baddies of Earth, it merely goes on a rampage of Biblical destruction. In the original, Gort was Robocop on a tight leash, in the new film, he's little more than an atom bomb on a hair trigger.
The thing that makes this film so hideously bereft of human emotion is that it concentrates on rather thin stock characters following orders. I can imagine that the committee writing it deciding to go with montages of panic in the streets around the world rather than to add more speaking roles of ordinary people faced with crisis. As a disaster movie, it's a disaster. War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, The Day After Tomorrow, all very flawed films were all more involving.
Certainly, thoughtful people will see through the shallow Earth-First posturing of the film. But surely there are millions preparing to be enchanted by the kind of bitchslap from space the film offers up. The swiftness with which the so-called scientists capitulate in this film is utterly cowardly. And as if to make up for the simple and obvious need for human survival they place the entire emotional center of the film on a kid, who displays more common sense and emotion than the entire rest of the cast combined. Alas, he is nothing but a kid.
What truly astonishes me about this film is that there is not one kiss anywhere. There are teary hugs but only between the female lead and the kid. She, by the way, does her best acting in realizing within a split second that the awesome power of the alien is implacable - her begging and blubbering is perfect. The power of love, redemption, courage and morality are like stickers on a blank sheet of paper instead of woven into the fabric of the plot. I expect a lot more from my sci-fi and so should you.
However if you are somewhere beneath the emotional maturity of my 12 year old daughter, you might think it cool to see that the cluster of civilizations beyond our technological reach finds collecting frogs and squid more interesting than saving humanity. Wait, that's exactly what a lot of twisted humans think. Oh. I get it.
Somehow I am stuck with the image of a pumpjack stopping its job in service of humanity as the most poignant moment. Somewhere somebody is cheering. More's the pity.
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