The Day the Earth Stood Still (12A) (From Hampshire Chronicle)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (12A)

12:17pm Friday 12th December 2008 in Reviews

PLANET Earth is on the brink of catastrophe and mankind is to blame.

The human race has plundered and pillaged natural resources, pumped noxious gases into the atmosphere and buried toxins deep in the ground.

Forests have been scythed or incinerated to make way for industry, ecosystems irreparably disrupted, species hunted to extinction and warnings about global warming ignored.

With just seconds left on the countdown to doomsday, only one man can pull us back from the brink of self-destruction: Keanu.

Cast in the role of an intergalactic envoy, sent to rebuke mankind for its wilful disregard of Mother Nature, the Lebanese-born actor finesses his art of staring blankly into the camera and running the gamut of emotion without moving a single facial muscle.

While Robert Wise’s 1951 classic The Day The Earth Stood Still was a product of cold war era paranoia, Scott Derrickson’s remake goes green, banging the drum for an environmentally responsible and sustainable future.

The hysteria begins when a sphere of light touches down in Central Park, New York, bringing with it Klaatu (Reeves), a representative of all the other civilisations in the galaxy, who are convening to decide our fate.

The visitor warns Secretary of Defence Regina Jackson (Bates) and the scientific community, led by Michael Granier (Hamm) and astro-biologist Helen Benson (Connelly), of impending doom.

The Day The Earth Stood Still follows the template of Wise’s original with all of the technological, computer-generated bells and whistles you expect.

Keanu walks with purpose in slow motion while Connelly is wasted as the female lead and Will Smith’s son Jaden is surprisingly effective as a tyke rebelling against his stepmom.

The plot trundles towards the moment of reckoning when the special effects go into overdrive and a flicker of emotion threatens to twinge Keanu’s upper lip, then, like his spaceman, is gone forever.