The Day the Earth Stood Still :: Wessex Scene Online

The Day the Earth Stood Still

16th January 2009
Will Roszczyk

About this film

Title	The Day the Earth Stood Still
Director	Scott Derrickson
Release Date	12 December 2008
Certificate
Genres	Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Our Rating	4.0/5.0

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More by Will Roszczyk

the day the earth stood still

Hats off to director Scott Derrickson – he managed to gift Keanu with the role he was born to play.

I would venture a guess that any film-watching person would regard Keanu Reeves’ acting skills as wooden at best, blank and emotionless at worst. For those people (of which I sometimes count myself a member) ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ is a testament to the casting choice of director Scott Derrickson – he managed to gift Keanu with the role he was born to play, and as such the movie is that much better for its blank lead. The movie does, however, suffer from some weak writing and some incredibly clichéd characters.

Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connolly) is called alongside other scientists to survey a mysterious object entering the Earth’s orbit. The object settles in Central Park and a figure enters from within – under interrogation, Klaatu (Reeves) reveals that he is an alien emissary, sent by a group of powerful extra-terrestrial civilisations to warn the human race that our treatment of the planet has warranted action, potentially hostile and apocalyptic.

Reeves, often thought of as having the emotional range of a piece of 2 by 4, finds what could be described as a niche role to match his strange, other-worldly visage. As an alien without emotion he conveys a sense of unease and distrust through his vacant expressions and as such this is probably one of his best performances – the fact that he barely seems to blink throughout the film is incredibly unsettling. Jennifer Connolly does what she needs to, attempting but failing to balance the multiplicity of trying to be a strong heroine, sympathetic mother and put-upon widow as well as an ally to an alien. What detracts from her performance is her disadvantage in being in too few scenes without weeping to show off her weirdly huge eyes – we get it, she’s sad, but why drum it home? After a very short amount of time she infuriated me and I actually wished that she was not the main focus of the movie alongside Reeves.

Kathy Bates plays a Defence Secretary who is decidedly ambiguous – she cannot seem to decide whether to go with her hunches or follow orders and as such the actress has a pretty nothing role to play. An actress who is best at playing disturbing, angry characters is somewhat nullified here, in a stock politician role and the only thing that makes it a little different is that she’s a woman – this is the kind of role someone like Ed Harris would play. Will Smith’s son, Jaden, is actually pretty damn convincing as the precocious step-kid of Connolly’s character, a damaged child who cannot process death but is faced with it throughout the film’s length. John Hamm and Kyle Chandler play sympathetic and antagonistic sides of the government’s response to Klaatu’s arrival and each do what they need to – their performances don’t give them much more of an option and this is a shame, as they’re ciphers, nothing more than extreme examples of each side of the debate. John Cleese appears for about four minutes as a wise and important scientist – really, really weird for any of us brought up on ‘Fawlty Towers’ and ‘Monty Python’, as Cleese is not known for his serious roles. The problem with the supporting cast is that they are not as interesting nor as bizarrely compelling to watch as Reeves is – this is perhaps deliberate, with him being an alien and all, but at the same time you’d think that the characters would be more fleshed out as to be able to compare with Klaatu – unfortunately this is not the case!

Scott Derrickson, through his direction, stakes a claim to be the breakout director of 2008 here; he manages to take a major-budget sci-fi action film with a brain and make it work, a hard task – but Derrickson seems to have ably coped with it, presenting a film that manages to balance both insane action with thoughtful ideas. His concept that alien civilisations want us to stop harming the Earth (or face the consequences) is eerily apt for the current position of global warming and the film does not often find itself drifting into cheesy or strained scenes – but the writing is poor, particularly in regard to the characters, who are crudely sketched caricatures of atypical judgements and opinions. Visually, the movie succeeds beyond expectations. The special effects on show are stupendously good – from the orb that swirls with energy that signals the alien arrival, through to the sentinel sent to guard it (and latterly this object’s amazingg defence mechanism). The film is a sumptuous sight to behold if nothing else.

The film is great – its message is firm, its effects work strong and convincing and many of the main roles well-cast, however the characters are pushed to one side, put out of balance by Reeves and Connolly and whilst Reeves is the centre of the film here, Connolly is not strong enough to grip as much as him, as well as the other characters. To poorly quote the movie itself: With Reeves offscreen, the film suffers. With Reeves onscreen, the film survives.