The Day the Earth Stood Still

I was a little disappointed with The Day the Earth Stood Still. I liked it because I'm a total sci-fi buff and the special effects were great, but it was missing two main elements that made up the basis of the original movie from the '50s. The alien guy doesn't try to reach the world leaders to tell him why he's here, nor does he try to communicate anything about why he leaves. In this version, only Jennifer Connelly knows and I guess we're just supposed to assume everyone will listen to her later on. These key missing elements created a movie without a lot of cohesion in the plot.

On the plus side, Gort totally rocked! He looks the same as the original, which was cool because he's very menacing looking, except he's like 20 stories tall. Freakin' awesome! They did some cool things with Gort but I wish they could have figured out how to do more with him, especially since the main story line with Keanu Reeves was a little loose. If I was film editor on this, I would have cut back to Gort a lot more to watch him do stuff.

If you're a sci-fi fan I would say to catch this on cable or DVD, but overall I would have to recommend the original over this remake - cheesy '50s special effects and all. It was a much better story and the point is (sadly) still very relevant today.