Movie Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still

7/10

So yawn yawn it's time for another classic black and white cheapass sci fi movie from the cold war everyone!

Or is it?

You know, it's a strange beast, TDTEST... nope, that acronym sucks... sounds like a medical procedure.

Firstly, there is the fact that they eschewed years of crappy tradition and just made the alien look like a human being (though a creepy, tall human being, I must admit). This film is being remade by Hollywood with Keanu Reeves in the lead, and this remake will be the first time Keanu has been cast well - as a creepy weird self important alien being.

So, the film I say recently was the original and very nice it is too. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's pretty standard fare on the face of it; giant robot and man/alien come to Earth to tell us all off for being naughty boys.

The robot is cool - a sort of good version of the Dr Who robot, whose clearly spray painted plastic skin is stronger than a diamond drill and impenetrably hard. He has a beam that makes you drop your gun. Presumably because it gets hot, though this is never really put in those terms. He melts a tank! Yay!

Of course, the opening bit is an amusing judgement on the human condition, man travels halfway across the galaxy to say hello and the yanks immediately shoot him. What horrible creatures we are. Indeed, since the main point of this film is of the spaceman as allegory for Christ thats the usual message for those of that bent. Indeed, he takes on the rather blatant "Carpenter" as his pseudonym (it's on the wash tag from he stolen jacket he's wearing) and dies and is then resurrected. Wow... you don't get subtle imagery like that any more (except in IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH).

You'd be forgiven for thinking that given my views on religion I'd instantly despise this film for such a conceit but actually, nah, it's pretty good. I mean, it's impossible to hold it up to a modern day classic like "The Assassination of Jesse James" or "No Country for Old Men" but for what it is I have always enjoyed it.

The cold war angle is much more sensitively handled here than in the vast majority of "sci fi as red paranoia" films of this era - with all sides seemingly wanting to do the right thing but crippled by their fear and "petty squabbles".

I really like how callous the character of Klaatu is about humanity, and how he is quite happy for us to kill each other, so long as we don't start spreading throughout the galaxy. There's no punch-pulling from Klaatu in this speech, he simply tells it like it is. Good stuff.

Horror fans will of course recognise the "klaatu barada nikto" sequence of words as being the magic words in Army Of Darkness here it is used to stop the robot going on a killing rampage after Klaatu gets shot. The rampage is stopped a little too immediately for my liking, and I expect the remake to have considerably more destruction at this point, I would have loved to see the cardboard Washington come crashing down.

Oh, Washington? Yeah.. that's where any self respecting alien heads. He didn't go to Moscow (presumably because they were all evil) and didn't go to Europe (presumably because they are not America). He went to the USA, because naturally they are the only nation with the will and power to change humanity. This is a theme of cold war US pictures (and, lets face it, Independence Day as well) and, y'know, it is as dated now as the apple pie mom and her son, Bobby (his dad was killed at Anzio, but he still has pictures of Bombers on his wall) - he even says "gee" and is ADHD positive enough that he can be having a strop about being called a liar and next moment be as compliant as a dog ("okay, mom!"). Ah bless.

The other thing that has dated badly is the way Klaatu as Carpenter is allowed to spend lots of alone time with the little boy - I'll be interested to see if this remains in the update since it would be a fascinating look into the innocence that 100% peaceful society brings. The alien simply wouldn't imagine it could be misconstrued. Ah, but they have been monitoring us or years so that's probably not going to happen. Just thought it would be interesting.

So overall, this is a bit of a fun romp through what in those days were "progressive" attitudes, in fact that use of inverted commas is a little unfair since they didn't ask for the "almighty spirit" line to be put in (that was the studio) and the pro-peace message was more than a little progressive. The main thing that really violates "progressive" ideals is that at no stage are womens places as second class citizens questioned. There is not one single proactive woman or woman in a position of authority, this may be of its time, but I'd at least expect any enlightened alien to mention how dumb that is. Even our "heroine" only realises what's up after her fancy man, and even more incredibly, her son, have the wherewithal to find out. Incredible.

So... how doe sthis rate on the "is it worth seeing?" scale? Do see it. Even if it's just so you can see how badly they botch the remake. It's light years ahead of "Invaders from Mars" or "Flying Saucermen from Mars" (apologies for all the mars films but it was the RED planet).

It's also worth seeing since it is one of the few non-propaganda /non-commie-paranoia sci fi movies.

Til next time!

A