BEFORE: Same story as last night, only with (hopefully) better effects.
THE PLOT: A remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth.
AFTER: Definite upgrade. Keanu Reeves seemed (to me) the perfect choice to play Klaatu, the alien in human form who would probably not really understand human emotions, or be able to express them. He hasn't really shown much expression since his "Bill & Ted" days.
Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) gets an upgrade too - in the first film she was a secretary in the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, but here she's a top biologist, called in a part of an elite team to investigate the strange sphere that's shown up in Central Park (flying saucers are so old-fashioned...). She's on hand when the spaceman emerges, and (once again) gets shot by the military, and taken to a hospital.
What happens in the hospital is unique, and a great explanation for why this alien appears in human form. No explanation was given in the 1951 film, it was just taken as something of a coincidence that a man from another world looked human...
And Gort gets a major upgrade - in the original film, he was quite obviously played by a man in a tinfoil suit - but here he's a 50-foot tall CGI masterpiece, capable of taking on military helicopters and anything else the military decides to throw at him.
Aliens are tricky when it comes to their motives - remember the ones from "The Twilight Zone" that carried a book titled "To Serve Man"? And it turned out to be a book of recipes? Those bastards... Well, Klaatu has come to save the Earth - note that he didn't say "to save mankind", because in the opinion of the alien council, it's the humans that are the problem, and it's time to correct the situation.
In the 1951 film, Klaatu seemed like a peacenik socialist, but in this one, he's something of a hippie liberal with an environmental agenda. Man is a threat not because of his warlike nature, but because he's been polluting the planet and causing other species to become extinct - and it's their earth too!
Also starring Kathy Bates (as the Secretary of Defense!), Jaden Smith, John Cleese (as a Nobel-winning scientist!) and Jon Hamm.
RATING: 7 out of 10 action figures
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