The Day the Earth stood Still (2008)

A remake of a classic sci-fi featuring the actor with the least facial expressions in Hollywood, including the actors that have been dead for decades? I'm not intrigued.

Strange intro. They actually manage to create a certain expectation in the scene where Connelly is picked up and driven to the airport. Nicely done. After this, dullness ensues and the feeling of being intrigued is forever lost.

The "suspense" is mostly tedious and unoriginal. Flashlights in the fog, trying to find something unknown, bright, blinding lights, lines like "it's close" and what not. Yawn.
Where the original was an epiphany and a science fiction pillar, this is a lot of the time like a horror movie from a forest of some kind, with the odd sci-fi element.
It's filled with stupid mistakes and logical flaws, mocking people who are actually paying attention.

Connolly is an excellent actress who has been mostly very good at choosing her parts. In this film though, she is utterly out of place and brings little to a nothing of a character (even though she cries much more often than necessary). Reeves was always horrible at chemistry, and has none here either, making all his interactions with others a bore. However, none of the characters are really anything but shells, their motivation seems a mystery and their development as well. Except for the kid. Portrayed by Jaden Smith, he is excruciating in every scene and you need to google "JarJar" in order to find an example of a more unnecessary, irritating and useless character. With dialogue taken from the very bottom of the deepest pile of dung in the zoo, there is nothing to find on a personal level. Oh, and John Cleese is a miscast so dire, one could weep.

Unfortunately, the storyline is as bad as the characters. I doubt director Derrickson had a clear thought as to what he wanted to make here. Either that or it was bullocksed later.

There is a bit of action and some sparse suspense and when they run out of script and decide to just blow shit up this flick is at its best/least horribel. But considering the creativity and originality of the original, this mess of a thriller with sci-fi connotations can only be described with one word. Blasphemy. A most worthy winner of the Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel".

2/10