The Day the Earth Stood Still

A Note on the Remake

Gort from the 2008 remake

While I greatly enjoyed the original, 1951 rendition of The Day the Earth Stood Still, I found the 2008 remake to be completely unmoving.

I want to be clear: this isn’t because of Keanu Reeves, whom I think is a fine actor.  Rather, and much more importantly, this remake lost all of the intensity of the original.  Sure, the special effects were much better in this remake (see Gort, for example), but the remake simply doesn’t grab the viewer like the original did.  It failed to capture that je ne sais quoi of the original.

Unlike the original, which stands the test of time rather well, the remake is a movie that I suspect most people won’t care to watch more than once, if even that.