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DVDfever.co.uk – The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Blu-ray: 
DVD:
- Cert:
- Running time: 103 minutes
- Year: 2008
- Released: April 2009
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 28 plus extras
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: Dolby TrueHD, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £22.99 (DVD), £31.99 (Blu-ray)
- Extras: In-Movie features, Klaatu’s Unseen Artifacts: Picture-In-Picture Track, Build your own Gort, Deleted Scenes,Featurettes, Stills Galleries, Theatrical Trailer, Bonus digital copy, D-Box Motion Code
- Vote and comment on this film:View Comments
Director:
- Scott Derrickson
(The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008), The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hellraiser: Inferno, Love in the Ruins)
Producers:
- Paul Harris Boardman, Gregory Goodman and Erwin Stoff
Screenplay:
- David Scarpa
Original Score :
- Tyler Bates
Cast :
- Klaatu: Keanu Reeves
Dr Helen Benson: Jennifer Connelly
Secretary of Defense: Regina Jackson: Kathy Bates
Jacob Benson: Jaden Smith
Professor Barnhardt: John Cleese
Michael Granier: Jon Hamm
John Driscoll: Kyle Chandler
Colonel: Robert Knepper
Mr Wu: James Hong
General Quinn: Roger Cross
Ok, classic ’50s B-movie, remade with not the most charismatic of actors but one who can be entering from time to time. Any good?
It’s 1928 and we begin in the mountains in India. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) braves the snowstorm (snow in India?)and comes across a pulsating, glowing orb… and it’s not emitting cool ambient music from the ’90s. Chipping it openwith his pickaxe, a bright light shines out…
Coming to, some time later, he awakes to find something has been implanted in his hand.
Cut to the present day and Jennifer Connelly plays Dr Helen Benson,a university lecturer teaching baffling science nonsense. While preparing dinner for her stepson, she’s whiskedaway by lots of FBI men in big cars and motorbikes. “Everything will be explained to you en route”, for the sakeof ‘national security’. Turns out she’s not the only one. But what’s the big hullaballo? Well, something big and fastis about to hit the Earth – and in less time than it actually takes to watch this movie. Projections show it will wipeout Manhattan. What would Woody Allen do?? We weren’t informed.
No-one told Helen it wasn’t fancy-dress.
Naturally, the world obviously doesn’t end otherwise it’d be a short film, but the scientist bods discover the orbis now far bigger than it was when Keanu took an interest, and the army swing into action to get ready to blow it backto the Stone Age. However, after injuring the alien that walks out (which turns out to be Keanu, of course… or is it?),they then encounter Gort – and he, or rather it, is fucking huge!
The cast also includes Kathy Bates as The Secretary of Defence, the highest person in charge after both the President and Vice Presidentare whisked away to safe locations while Curtis from 24 (Roger Cross) manages to come back to life, after being shot in the neckby Jack, to advise as an army bod that other spheres have dropped anchor in other locations around the world and arecausing mass panic. And as another scientific bod starts to explain it to Ms Bates, we get a nice big plug for Microsoft’stouchscreen gizmo Surface. This has been demonstrated on BBC’s Click in the past to show how, for example,you can place a drinks order in a bar while still being sat at your table – since you just press a few virtual buttonson your ‘table’. What it did not describe was why in the world no-one’s ever developed a Sainsbury’s delicatessen-styleticket system for bars so that you actually all get served in the order in which you arrived, and not in order of whoshouts the loudest.
Elsewhere, we’ve also got Jaden Smith as Helen’s stepson Jacob, who’s not quite as annoying as he could’ve been,Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm as Michael Granier, a bloke working for the military who comes to trust Helen a lot morethan most do (although, thankfully, this film avoids any form of romantic involvement) and I was dreading John Cleeseappearing as boffin, Professor Barnhardt, as he usually tries to play any role for laughs, but here he doesn’t, so he’sokay.
Before long Klaatu and Helen’s lives become intertwined, but what plans does he have for the Earth? And when Ms Batesasked him what he’s doing on our planet, what did he mean when he replied, “*Your* planet?”
The aliens weren’t big sports fans.
Other random obversations: There’s a dig at the illegal invasion of Iraq by stating that she is all Jacob has leftbecause his father was killed as an engineer in the army; Keanu’s wooden performance doesn’t put you off – it, in fact,rather is in keeping with the staid alien character he’s portraying; and, yeah, T-Bag’s in the movie! (aka RobertKnepper) He’s in charge of the military when it comes to attacking Gort.
And whereas the original film made the statement that mankind was destroying itself with its own weapons and ignorancesand so Klaatu should put us out of our misery, this remake reckons that exterminating the humans is the only way to stopthat big nonsense the government bleats on about so-called “global warming”. In fact, the pro-Al Gore message reallygrates – it’s less as a brief mention and more as a great big hammer in the face and serves as blatant propaganda.If I wanted to watch An Inconvenient Truth then I would, but that wasn’t the disc I put in the machine.
Oh, and just when you think the swarm of that claptrap has ended, it rears its ugly head again and beats you about thebottom the same as it did with your face. The only one to escape that will be Pigeon Street‘s Long-Distance Claraas she makes her last delivery (see further down the review)
Overall, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a film that just about maintains your interest but is lightweightin content and heavyweight on the moralising.
The BBC were forced to bring back their BBC1 ‘spinning globe’ ident.
The Day The Earth Stood Still is my second Blu-ray disc but I’ve experienced HD before and understand what I’m to expect. As such, the picture and soundare flawless. The film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks as highly detailed as you’d expect ahigh-definition picture to look which, in layman’s terms, is like being able to watch on a larger screen but with thedefinition increased accordingly so it’s not just a case of blowing up what you were last watching on a 32″ screenwhich just results in getting a not-particularly-great picture. For the record, I’m watching on a Panasonic 37″ Plasmascreen.
The sound comes in DTS HD 5.1, DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 formats.I haven’t got a DTS HD setup, which allows for a 7.1 surround speaker setup, but then I haven’t got the room for thateither, so DTS 5.1 will do nicely, sir. There are some very neat and loud special FX to be heard throughout the filmas the CGI kicks in fairly often with audio to match and, at all times, the dialogue is clear.
The extras are as follows:
- In-Movie features: Pressing certain buttons on your remote during the film will bring this up: Greengives you audio commentary from David Scarpa, Blue enables the ‘Bonusview Making-Of’ mode to view Pre-viz and Special FXfootage and photos, while the Yellow button provides storyboards.
- Klaatu’s Unseen Artifacts: Picture-In-Picture Track: Does what it says on the tin and begins with alternatefootage not seen in the film, starting with an original CGI opening that goes P-in-P with the opening credits we did get.This appears to be what we’d get from the green button normally since that toggles it on/off.
- Build your own Gort: Create your own robot by mixing and matching head, torso, arms and legs. Sounds a bitlike that grisly ‘jigsaw’ murder that’s been in the news, except in reverse and with an automaton. It’s a bit of a laughbut that’s about it.
- Deleted Scenes (1:47): Three very brief scenes, the third being an extended one. You miss nothing by theexclusion of these.
- Featurettes (81:03): Four featurettes, each mixing film footage with chat from key cast and crew, that areself-explanatory in their titles – “Re-imagining The Day” (running 30:04 – how this remake came about), “Unleashing Gort” (13:49 – how to makean iconic figure return for the remake), “Watching The Skies: In Search of Extra-Terrestrial Life” (23:06 – speculation aboutwhat might exist out there) and “The Day The Earth Was Green” (14:02 – just in case your brain hasn’t already beennumbed by the absolute crap spouted about mankind is allegedly killing the planet, rather than it just being a naturallife-cycle). Oddly, none of these contain chapters within each featurette, the longest of which is 30 minutes.
- Stills Galleries: These cover – Concept Art (252 images), Storyboards (965 images) and Production Photos(452 images). Blu-ray disc owners will certainly get their money’s worth out of this little lot for sure!
- Theatrical trailer (1:48): Presented in anamorphic 2.35:1.
- Bonus digital copy: A separate disc is included which contains a version of the film which you can put intoyour PC and copy across to your PSP, Ipod, etc. I haven’t tried this myself but apparently these are low-res WMV filesso aren’t going to be automatically compatible for everyone.
- D-Box Motion Code: Yes, I’ve never heard of it either, but according tothis D-Box corporate video,the idea is that as well as experiencing top-notch audio and visual effects, you’ll also get motion effects – ratherlike a souped-up La-z-boy chair. In short – I. WANT. ONE. NOW! However, it appears the only one you can physically buyat the moment is a computer game racing chair that costs a penny under £13,000.
Another videoshows that in the US a system can cost $10,000, which is comparatively reasonable even if no-one has anything like thatmoney available in these credit-crunch times. However, I do like the comment on that video that states“I wonder what happens if your watching porn?” Well, ask Jacqui Smith – I’m sure she’s got one on expenses!
Prior to the main menu comes something that should’ve been left behind in the age of rental video – an advert for theX-Men Blu-ray trilogy. There’s the ‘Extras’ menu for this sort of thing. Elsewhere on the disc, there are subtitles in – well, the box claims English only, but the menu states different. While the audio included French, Italian and otherones that I can’t understand as they’re written in their native tongue, the subtitles number many more. If I had a listof them, I’d include it here. There are 28 chapters to the film which is plenty.
By the way, the subtitles on this disc are a bit odd, since rather than be always placed at the bottom of the screen – where you’dexpect, with dashes to indicate the start of a sentence of more than one person is speaking before the next subtitlescome along – they tend to move about a bit and are placed under where the person is. Hmm… not a bright idea, Fox, asthat’s rather on the distracting side.
But Keanu decided he was more a fan of ITV (well, someone has to be!)
PICTURE QUALITY
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.