Klaatu [Keanu Reeves] lands on earth along with a huge unknown organic and mechanical being that is only referred to as GORT. When Klaatu lands in the middle of Manhattan the entire US Army is there to greet him along with a group of top scientists, including Dr. Helen Benson [Jennifer Connelly] who feels that we should not completely fear this alien. Klaatu befriends Dr. Benson, and she is trying to understand why Klaatu is here – on Earth – and at the same time trying to keep herself and her stepson, Jacob [Jaden Smith], safe from this impending doom.

A couple nights before seeing this flashed up remake, which I may add that has some disappointing special effects and CG shots in comparison, I watched the fifty plus year old original science fiction B movie. I found myself understanding that this movie was somewhat a sequel rather than a remake, in that this movie was more about Klaatu coming to rid the world of mankind, while the original was about Klaatu coming to warn mankind that they must change or else they will have to be removed from the universe. However, what both movies shared was this need for this alien to see there is more to mankind than just our constant need to feed off of others, or blow stuff up [obviously he only saw Michael Bay films], but it was definitely less evident in the updated version.

Acting wise I guess everyone, excepting Jennifer Connelly, did exactly that they needed. Keanu Reeves was a soulless vessel that had flesh and blood but never felt human at all, and Jaden Smith was one of the most annoying children I’ve seen on screen this year. I must say, coming from Jamaica where we don’t believe in the idea of “spare the rod” policy Jaden’s character definitely annoyed me to hell. Every time Jennifer Connelly – playing his step mother – told him to do something and he decided to talk balk to her I kept remembering a certain scene from Lakeview Terrace, and then nothing happened and he continued to do it throughout the movie and she continued to ignore it. Even though I spent the entire movie sitting there hating Jaden Smith and laughing at Keanu Reeves – I personally think they were born for this role – whenever I was watching Jennifer Connelly I just felt nothing, she was just totally replaceable and should’ve been, but at the same time I don’t think I can give a good enough suggestion for a replacement today.

However, I think before we fire Jennifer Connelly, we should be having a big chat with the writers. It seems like they went way too over the top with the playing up of this very simple story. Now I’m not talking about just simply replacing whatever they are talking about in scenes in the original for the nowadays versions but a ton more. As I said they changed the more or less intent of the trip for Klaatu, which is basically the entire movie. I can tell you that they did this purposely so that they can have a much bigger/shinier version of the movie and have some destructive sequences and call it an “End Of The World” [will from now on be referred to as EOTW] movie. Now I think these EOTW movies are different from apocalyptic movies where the first is something like The Day After Tomorrow and the later is something like Children of Men. Running back in my mind I can’t think of an EOTW movie that I do like, so maybe it is just that this movie wasn’t for me, because the three other people who were there with me enjoyed it more than me – but not too much.

So in the end my suggestion is that you get up and run off to your nearest rental shop and get your hands on the original and enjoy that for the fraction of the price, but if you enjoy this kind of movie go right ahead. I personally did not enjoy this movie at all, especially after watching the original, so this will hurt the memory of what the original represents [even though my memory was only forty-eight hours old].

IMDB says 6.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 23%

I say 3.0/10