Cinema 2008: Sci-fi remake lacks punch, purity of original

On the day I saw Keanu Reeves in the remake of a 1951 science fiction classic, it was the audience that sat still. But I couldn’t tell if it was because they were depressed by the star’s atonal Chinese or stunned by cheesy CGI.

Scott Derrickson's 2008 remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” does have some things to recommend it. No. 1 is the screen presence of Jennifer Connelly, who carries every scene she is in. Connelly — as Helen Benson, a professor of astro-biology or something — will make you want to go back to college and sign up for a full load of science credits.

When the impersonal feds swoop down on Benson's warm hearth, the placid countenance and restraint of the lead government agent are at odds with the force he represents. But the resultant cinematic tension is squandered when the tweedy types are whisked away in big choppers in a scene that conveys no power, no G-force, but looks cribbed from some failed video game.

Still, we are treated to iconic New York City bathed in light from the strange alien spacecraft, which lands in Central Park. Our scientists wear hazmat suits that look like Dior as they approach the spacecraft. Derrickson gives us human beings who look like aliens, an apt image for the disconnect between mankind and his exploited planet.

In the original, spaceman Klaatu lands in D.C. In 2008, he sets it down in Central Park after overflying St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Empire State Building, but not Ground Zero. That last would have been an appropriate image had Keanu's Klaatu been on the same mission as his 1951 antecedent, namely, warning atomic-age mankind to end war or face annihilation from outer space. Perhaps Hollywood felt war was good in 2008, at least maybe the Global War on Terror. At any rate Klaatu's mission focuses on the imperiled environment, even though the starman could have easily found WMD. As it stands in the remake, Klaatu has come to save the earth — and is prepared to destroy mankind (and Giants stadium) if that's what it takes to do so.

Many special effects are unconvincing — from the fake snow on the fake beard of the Reeves' character in the clumsy pre-story, through to the swarm of space flies unleashed to devour homo polluter and his sports arenas.

And is Derrickson supporting the troops when he shows them busting our awe-inspired eggheads' Central Park intergalactic love-in? Why not humanize the guys on the front line? Instead, a trained trigger finger lights up Klaatu, and Benson is there to assume, blood spattered, the pietà pose. It is a stunning visual.

Kathy Bates' role as secretary of defense is well written, that is until the entire film derails in its denouement. Bates' character is a savvy politico, and limns the conflicts inherent when pure science and pragmatic government collide.

She decides, clever girl, that the extraterrestrial noncombatant can be held for having violated U.S. air space. Security is everywhere, except in the lie-detector room where a lone lackey administers a polygraph test to the man from outer space with no one at all watching (= weak page in script). Klaatu easily turns the tables on the agent and with a Terminator-like trope, obtains Men In Black threads in the bargain.

On the loose in Manhattan, Klaatu is at first content to observe the "fumble of humanity." But it's no fun to be single in the city, so Klaatu reunites with Benson. In what passes for irony in Hollywood, Klaatu meets a fellow alien, a sleeper cell of sorts, at a McDonald's in Jersey to decide the fate of the human race.

All in all, Keanu's Klaatu is a drag. He has one good line: Get in the car. Unfortunately, without an Austrian accent it never quite caught on.

When Klaatu finally meets with a Nobel laureate (John Cleese in too brief an appearance) there is a moment of pathos when the two species commune via the language of math. The professor senses all is lost and basically advises Benson to bat her eyelashes at the alien. And why not? Work it baby, the future of the whole race hangs in the balance.

Klaatu is finally convinced to call off Armageddon when he observes a mother's love for her son. The sentimental spaceman even puts himself at risk to halt the destruction unleashed by his "automaton," as it is called. Come on, we all know it is a robot.

The original film is much purer and its moral is delivered with a thought-provoking punch. In the remake, after Klaatu calls off annihilation, takes his robot and goes home, you just don’t feel rededicated to improving the world by anything you watched during the previous 103 minutes.



Gort, now he was a great robot, shown here on an updated poster for the 1951 original, directed by Robert Wise.

Cinema 2012: Eerie moments don't add up

A lot of scary stuff happens in the dark. But at some point in a movie you got to shine a light on it.

In 2012's "Sinister" by writer/director Scott Derrickson, just about the only thing spotlighted is a blatant jockeying to supplant those aging horror franchises that are in perennial reprise. Are sequels to “Sinister” already in the works? That truly would be a scary prospect.

“Sinister” tells the story of true crime author Ellison (Ethan Hawke), who moves with his wife and two young children into a “crime scene” house for a book he is working on and finds a cache of 8 millimeter home movies and, luckily, a film projector, too. The change of venue is actually the desperate play of a writer who is chasing past success. As the family unpacks we are introduced to Ellison’s wife and kids. Derrickson even gives us that warm and fuzzy trope, the family breakfast scene, complete with food-sparring siblings. But Ellison’s wife and kids are just foils in this narrative, although Juliet Rylance is utterly convincing in the sparse supporting role of wife Tracy. “Sinister” may be best remembered as a stalled Ethan Hawke vehicle rather than a story about a family in danger.

The exposition of the film suffers from its prolonged focus on a static and solitary Ellison. Whereas darkness may be considered a fitting metaphor for the writer’s work process, ideally these scenes would also be scary. But despite infrequent nuggets of shock, the terrible crimes that are at the heart of this mystery are detached stylistically from the action of the film since we see them only as projected images. The repeated showing of these passive murders of drugged victims actually dilutes the initial horror they evoked and eventually debunks the eerie quality of those images.

Ellison is in tune with the things that go bump in the night. And while he may not be a boxer à la Hemingway, this writer is no poltroon. Ellison grabs his Louisville Slugger and investigates. But turn on some lights for heaven’s sake! Derrickson is not scaring us in the dark; perhaps a brightly lit scene might.

One scene that does stand out appears to have been filmed with an I-phone as the sole source of light, a great realistic touch. Kudos to cinematographer Chris Norr for pushing that envelope and following in the trailblazing footsteps of Andrew Laszlo, director of photography on “First Blood,” who 30 years ago filmed the scenes of the Sylvester Stallone character in an abandoned mine using only the light from John Rambo’s improvised torch.

When Ellison finally decides to put family first we wonder about the consequences. But since the film had already turned its back on Ellison’s family – ironically we last see helpless Tracy from behind – the passing uncertainty of their fate is hardly poignant.

The musical score by Nicholas Triarchos, Judgehydrogen, and others is edgy and original except for a couple instances when Derrickson abuses the music as a falling rim shot to punctuate startling action on screen.

Fred Dalton Thompson plays a southern sheriff in this film but sadly he is more believable hawking reverse mortgages on TV than squandering his luscious baritone here.

(For the paragon of the southern sheriff, watch the late James Dickey in “Deliverance.” John Boorman made that movie 40 years ago but the performance by Dickey, who wrote the book and is shown here in the role of Sheriff Bullard, epitomizes to this day the often stereotyped Georgia sheriff.)

“Sinister” would also mine a trite and true source of Hollywood horror, namely, the spooky child who wreaks unholy terror. But this dodge doesn’t work well without some hinting at the motivation for such horror. In “Sinister” it has something to do with a shadowy, evil Pied Piper called Mr. Boogie. But after 110 minutes watching Hawke stumble around a dark house and dull script, viewers deserve more than an abrupt visual tease of the putative mastermind if they are expected to return for a Sinister 2.