As a rule, remakes are inferior to the originals.  That’s not to say that later films in a franchise can’t be better than the first of the series, however. The Dark Knight, X-Men 2, The Godfather 2, The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Trek 2: The Wraith of Kahn all exceed the films that preceded them. But it is with the remaking of a film that something goes wrong, and nowhere is this more evident than in the sickeningly awful redux of The Day the Earth Stood Still!
    Full disclosure: I LOVE the original Day the Earth Stood Still.  The message of maintaining peace by threat of force is just so interesting and resonates to this day. There is an epic feel to that film that makes anyone watching immediately take notice. The remake has none of this, however. There is a GIANT plot hole that negates the entire premise.  This eco-friendly alien cares about the Earth, but has no qualms destroying it?...I’m still working that out.  And while the special effects are impressive, there’s no real story to make them matter.  It’s like doing plastic surgery on a body with no bones or muscles.  It’s a pointless endeavor.
    Now, the acting is something that should be studied by performance scholars to show future generations how NOT to be on camera! Keanu Reeves isn’t as bad as most of these “too cool for the room” Internet trolls make him out to be. He’s a bankable draw who picks his projects carefully to mask his performance limitations.  It’s hard to imagine The Matrix films with someone else in that role.  But his dry, apathetic delivery just comes of as laziness here.  He brought nothing to this, just moping through the film like an eco-poser.  Jennifer Connelly has always been hit or miss for me.  I’ve loved her in Labyrinth since I was a kid and her performance in Requiem for a Dream is amazing. But for every one of these, Connelly puts out a Dark Water.  She’s chewing up the scenery in this film as if her diet consisted solely of backdrops and props. 
    The more I watch film and attempt to make my own, I’m convinced that no single person is more responsible for the success of a film than the director.  Filmmaking, as a member of my thesis committee recently described it, is a directors’ medium.  It is their vision that ends up on the screen. They are the captains of the ship.  When researching this blog, I looked up the directors of both films.  The original was brought to us by Robert Wise, the man responsible for West Side Story, I Want to Live and Run Silent, Run Deep. Scott Derrickson directed the remake. This “artist” directed the abysmal Exorcism of Emily Rose and Hellraiser: Inferno.  With a pedigree like that, how could this film fail? 
    The Day the Earth Stood Still of 1951 is an amazing film with rich political subtext and religious allegory.  The remake has a cool green orb that glows.  If you’ve not seen the original, take a look. And let’s all pretend that the abomination that is Keanu’s version even exists.  

    Next time, we’ll look at Milk. I’m still mulling this film over; not sure if I actually liked the film or felt the power of the story.  On a personal note, I received word that my short film “A Story for Stephanie” has been accepted into a film festival in New York this Summer!  It’s a big honor and totally unexpected. 

For all you twitter-ites out there, you can follow me; I’m TVJoel on twitter.com. Until next time, that’s going to be a wrap from The Director’s Chair.