I find this review useless to inform the public of the merits and/or lack thereof of this film. Rather it is incredibly mean-spirited and arrogant. You believe David Scarpa and Scott Derrickson to be devoid of any talent? What an idiot you are with likely no understanding of what it takes to develop and create a movie of any size, let alone one this big.
Oh, but then I read the real motive behind trashing what is at least an enjoyable film with some truly fabulous moments and at best an important re-telling of a very interesting story with some brilliant acting... you are angry at Fox for their "marginalizing of the press". Well, maybe you can gain some maturity enough to do your job of reviewing movies and get over your personal vendetta against a studio you feel has personally injured you.

Totally agree. That movie sucked.

@Sally: maybe you should put aside your personal grudge towards the reviewer and tell us in what way you think David Scarpa or Scott Derrickson showed ANY creativity at all. I didn't see it! It was even more stupid then The Happening, something I believed was hardly possible.

I also find this review incredibly useless. I agree with the review i thought it was a pile of **** but, if you want to write a review maybe you should leave your arrogant opinions aside and actually critique the film. Horrible review not helpful at all, when i anticipate a movie and then read bad reviews of the movie its disappointing. This movie was extremely disappointing, the least a decent critic could do is give us some insight as to what the directors and screenwriters have done wrong what can be fixed etc... Its criticism, maybe next time instead of completely trashing everyone that made the film you could actually offer a review. I highly doubt that "they have no talent" is very thought out at all. Whether you like the movie or not its your job, so maybe do it properly and put your bull**** aside.

I like 3/4 of the movie. I have never watched the original nor know the story, so my friend and I really enjoyed a good part of the movie.
I like the actors and the visual is good.
The thing I would like to change is the ending part. It's doesn't make sense that aliens don't understand that we can change if we must change. The aliens are smart enough to learn everything about us, to the degree of immitating us. They should have known our emtion, passion, and our ability to change. So, by just looking at the relationship between the scientist and her step-son is not a good convincing reason for the alien to change their mind. The story ends to abruptly without reasonable explanation. It's like many of the Hollywood movies, where the beginning part is really interesting and fascinating, and the end is just some quick, lousy job, with very simple explanation.

All in all, we had a good time while watching the movie (except the end). I would recommend my friends to watch it in the theater.

Wow how suprising another critisizing review on boxoffice.com is that all you guys do is talk trash about good movies?, the reviewer really needs to remember a lot of people think diffrently from he/she, people might like the plot, or just the actors, but just becuase the reviewer didnt like it doesnt meen it calls for automatic critisizm.

dhis movie sucked!

Save your money people. Don't waste your time on it... Not only this movie was a boring let down, it was packed with the usual propaganda and worn out enviro-nazism. I wanted to see a good movie, not a bunch of liberals lecturing me on how evil the U.S. and the human race is. If the movie writers think so low of themselves and the human race, they should put a gun to their own head and pull the trigger instead of insulting everybody else.

gf

this review makes me laugh.
people who say that they dont like the movie are saying it because they were expecting a bunch of violence and what not. The actual storyline was great, i loved this movie. yes it had some enviromental but obviously the movie holds truth, we are incapable of change.

itsucks

This movie is just another example of the lack of creativity from the Hollywood clan. These days, it's fashionable to say we humans are horrible and we're destroying poor Mother Earth. Well, I'd like to point out that the idiots who made this pile of crap used up a fair amount of Earth's precious resources themselves. And I'll bet they didn't ride bicycles into the studio, either.

WHAT ARE WE YELLING ABOUT

I have to agree with Sally Finch. Critics still have Fox under the gun.

I have heard critics say the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” may not be what the public is expecting to see. What a downer of a remark. This movie was made for IMAX. If you saw and liked the original this one will make you teary eyed with compassion for mankind. The producers and directors recreated the original, paying homage to a finely directed 1951 film that still places in the top 30 greatest sci-fi films of all time. And they made it 10 times better and the special effects are the APEX of movies today. This movie should not be thrown into these critics pile of rubbish. They did NOT pay attention to the dialogue or they wouldn't call it an environmental movie. It was a science fiction movie and it did not promote animals in any way. The planet is the only thing that the species was concerned about. They removed the animals,plants, fish, foul etc . to do whatever they had to do the restore the Earth to a life sustaining planet. They said from the beginning that it was dying.

I thought that this film was edited so beautifully to flow from one scene to the next without in-between garbage that sometimes is enough to disrupt plots. Sci-fi movies should be made to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, or at least have the audience captive with special affects or storyline. No scene was wasted. Everything that was said had some significant message in it. As one major newspaper put it, the movie gets right to the point and moves on. I didn’t see one person get up and go to the refreshment stand or leave the showroom once the show began. This, to me, indicates that the audience was under the spell of either the 3D affects or the plot kept them going. For me it was both.

An object is spotted in space and a trajectory shows it to be on a collision course with the Earth. The Earth has seventy-eight minutes to count down, when suddenly the UFO slows down at count zero and code red goes to yellow as it approaches Earth to land. This "sphere" or rather I should say “mother ship of many spheres” lands in the middle of Central Park It is approached by a cautious science team chosen to handle first contact situations. There are a number of the spheres situated around the globe. The mother ship lands in Central Park. An alien comes forth for first contact and as usual, mankind can't control his urge to shoot first and ask questions later.

Keanu Reeves plays Klaatu, the emissary from another galaxy who is shot down, interrogated, and refused a chance to speak with the United Nations because of the protocol of our Homeland Security. They have to obey the orders of the president. The old "take me to your leader," may not work if you have a leader who thinks his opinion is the only one that counts.

Klaatu has an embryonic epidermis which will allow him to be born as a human on Earth and while in captivity he evolves into a human cloned from a mountain climber in India many years before. All of this evolution takes place in a matter of hours.

Klaatu has brought with him a gigantic robot that from its first behavior, appears to be only his protector. Actually...it is a weapon of mass destruction... terminator of all human life on Earth. This was not worked out the same way in the original.

The Secretary of Defense, played by Kathy Bates, is trying to find out whatever she can but her boss, the president, lacks diplomacy and compassion for alien life forms or just doesn’t want to listen to anyone else’s advice. Klaatu is put through interrogation but instead of giving answers to his interrogator, he first gives a warning and then it is Klaatu who gets answers from the interrogator. Klaatu makes his escape with the help of a female scientist, Helen Benson who is played by Jennifer Connelly. She is the scientist assigned to study the alien.

Klaatu later calls on her help because he finds that his human form is an inferior host which requires all kinds of maintenance such as food, clothes, and medical attention. At this point he has not carried out his mission. This is when a platonic relationship starts to form between Helen and Klaatu.

Klaatu meets up with another alien who has been in human form for quite some time but he reports that he has been unable to find a way that the destiny of man will change. That’s when the decision is made that the Earth can't be reasoned with as Klaatu's attempt to reach the United Nations has failed. The dialogue between the aliens definitely moved me to sympathy for mankind. “I will not leave Earth,” one of them said. “I find that being a human is difficult,” but he went on to say that as he grew near the time for his life to be over, he looked back and was glad that he had the opportunity to experience humanity. This puzzles Klaatu but his mind has been made up. No one will take him to the world leaders to negotiate terms of any kind.

Klaatu explains his mission to Helen. He must destroy humankind to preserve the planet Earth as it is one of just a few that is able to sustain life and we are killing it. He tells Helen, “If the Earth dies, you die with it. If the human race dies, the Earth will survive," Helen pleas with Klaatu to tell us what to do to change things and we will make those changes. Klaatu decides to hear her out. She takes Klaatu to a scientist, a Noble Peace Prize winner in hopes that Klaatu will be convinced that man can understand learn and develop to something greater than he is right now. Klaatu shuns the scientist’s idea that mankind is moving in a new direction and shows him an equation that mathematically shows man to be a species that makes an evolutionary change on the precipice of extinction.

Klaatu is still pragmatic and not convinced that those equations are right because he hasn’t been human long enough. He asks Helen to take him to the sphere to carry out his mission. Helen’s stepson is tagging along and, Klaatu is exposed to the child’s input on what Klaatu is about to do and Klaatu is sensitive to the child’s responses. Klaatu puts the wheels in motion and the spheres start gathering male and female of all species of life form on Earth.

Meanwhile, The Secretary of Defense has collected data from every surveillance on Earth and found that Klaatu has been collecting species from all over the globe. She tells her aides, "It's making an ark and next will come the flood."

The robot, called Gort, is in custody and under study when suddenly he starts to break down into tiny insectoid bots. (Metallic looking locusts would be a good description to people who are not familiar with sci-fi terminology.) With the use of the DMR sound the insectoids can be heard crawling on the roof of the theatre. Again, special effects are part of the success of a good sci-fi.

The fugitives now are Klaatu, Helen and her stepson Jason who mistrusts the alien. He soon discovers Klaatu’s true identity and out of fear he makes a call on his cell phone and alerts authorities of the location. While they are on the run, Klaatu performs some pretty miraculous feats. Helen's stepson, witnessing Klaatu’s powers learns to accept Klaatu. They are separated from Helen when the authorities come in by helicopter and take Helen first but Klaatu resists them.

Later he talks to Helen on a cell phone and it is agreed that Klaatu will leave the child in a cemetery for Helen to reunite with before the Earth is destroyed. Klaatu contemplates the many tombs of the dead military that fought for mankind and he starts to evolve in his own thinking that perhaps man has some value that he had not considered before. Man was willing to die for man.

He begins to evolve in his own thinking at this point. The audience should be gaining some understanding as well but from some of these reviews people weren't paying attention.

Anyway, the dye has already been cast for Earth's destruction. Even if you know the whole story the movie’s special effects are outstanding to go and see. Go to an IMAX if you can. The experience is nothing short of spectacular.

I also saw a lot of points well taken in The Day the Earth Stood Still 2008 that critics overlooked. I did not find it to be one-sided at all. Pros and cons were balanced in this movie but the case for humankind is plead here in this movie.

One critic dwelt on politics and made comparisons between Kathy Bates character role saying the character was a split of Clinton and Palin. I have never seen so many critics with the bias of politics and environment. I think we should all move on from the issues of the last election while trying to be objective about a movie.

Children under thirteen should have parental guidance. Some sci-fi scenes could be interpreted as horrific if seen by younger children in an IMAX theatre. There’s no nudity or foul language. This movie is very high in human elements and moral content.

I highly recommend it for intelligent people and people who are altruistic and philosophical.

It was entertainment at its best. I doubt if some of these critics even really went to see it at all, judging by their reviews. One said he didn't understand the storyline. I think perhaps he should have left his meds at home.

Whoa man not to insult anyone or make em feel bad,but cheryl u sure sleep late (not that it has anything to do with this movie)

I am shocked to see bad reviews for this movie, I enjoyed it from beginning to the end. Finally we see a movie with good writing, story and acting (aside from the kid). I will be recommending this one.

I find this review baffling... did you watch the whole movie?

to the reviewer: great job in discrediting what is a great hollywood movie in a while! Needless to dwelve into the philosophical questions arising from its message with you or all the zombies around here! I'm sure what you did was worth financially.

to ed the conservative: pollution is at the foundation of your development as a nation! That's why you drive more 2+ ton cars to work and back every day than everybody else on the planet. Because you're developed. What you personally could try to make it better is to stop breathing as much.

PS: and yes, Wade Major. You ARE one of the stupid humans inhabiting Earth. 99% of the animal species tend not to wipe out the environment they live in, like we do. And they surely don't write bull**** about it, like you do. So 2x congrats!

This movie is an IQ test.

We know where the reviewer stands.

Just another typical boxoffice.com trash review.

I loved the review. Totally right on!! This movie is so bad that whoever gave it the green light should be fired!
But for those of "you" who loved it, well Fox will no doubt be releasing the "suckers cut" on DVD at $39.95. Hey go for it.