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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Day the Earth Stood Still, The
20th Century Fox
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some sci-fi disaster images and violence
Starring
Keanu Reeves,
Jennifer Connelly,
Jon Hamm,
John Cleese,
James Hong,
Jaden Smith,
Kathy Bates,
and
Kathy Bates
The Day the Earth Stood Still is 20th Century Fox’s contemporary reinvention of its 1951 classic. Klaatu, an alien who arrives on our planet, triggers a global upheaval. As governments and scientists race to unravel the mystery behind the visitor’s appearance, a woman and her young stepson get caught up in his mission – and come to understand the ramifications of Klaatu calling himself a “friend to the Earth.” (20th Century Fox)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
Sci-fi
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Edmund H. North (1951 screenplay)
David Scarpa
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Scott Derrickson
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 7, 2009
Theatrical: December 12, 2008
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
70
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
This contemporary remake of the science-fiction classic knew what it was doing when it cast Keanu Reeves, the movies' greatest stone face since Buster Keaton.

67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Surprise! The remake is not a heresy. It's a decent enough stab at being what the old movie was to its time, following the same basic plot, full of respectful references to its model, updated with a gallery of fairly imaginative special effects.

67
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
The one unforgivable crime committed in this remake is the lack of the original's most famous line of dialogue: "Klaatu barada nikto." Would it have been so tough to squeeze that in somewhere?

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
I can't explain the film's main problem without giving plot points away; suffice to say that, after decades of watching Earth, Klaatu's team of observers has missed a crucial event you and I witness every day. I can tell you about the secondary problem, though: too much money.

63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
An entertaining rethink of the 1951 classic.

63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Passed my popcorn-movie test. Using the vast, expensive technology of a big studio production, it roused enough cheap energy to drive me to eat a bag of popcorn fit for a circus animal and wash it down with a quart of Diet Coke.

63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Just because the new The Day the Earth Stood Still is green, though, doesn't mean it's dull. If anything, there's a lot more mayhem and destruction this time around.

60
Empire
Helen O'Hara
A remake that does not disgrace the original, this is sufficiently different to stand alone and just as relevant in its concerns – as well as succeeding (arguably better) as a thriller. And after this performance, are we sure that Keanu Reeves is really human?

58
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
For most of the way this ecofriendly fantasy is pleasantly clunky, and Reeves, whose expressive range here is slim to none, is perfectly cast as the alien.

58
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Tasha Robinson
Like the big shiny sphere at its center, the film is fairly pretty, but there's no real sense that there's anything inside it.

50
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Although the new version, which stars Keanu Reeves, is likely to make audiences pine for the meta-irony of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," it's not a complete failure.

50
Village Voice
Luke Y. Thompson
The problem here is that there are no big ideas.

50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
All this is presented in an expensive, good-looking film that is well-made by Scott Derrickson, but to no avail.

50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
Keanu Reeves plays Klaatu, confining his usual two-and-a-half-note vocal range to half that.

50
USA Today
Claudia Puig
The story, an updated version of the 1951 classic about a portentous extraterrestrial visit, feels musty and derivative, and not only because it's a remake.

50
TV Guide
Cammila Albertson
Pretty good as science fiction thrillers go, but sadly, there isn't much more to say about it.

50
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
One of the big problems here is that, despite much exposition, the nature of Klaatu's mission on Earth isn't at all clear.

50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
It lacks the simple elegance and intelligence of the earlier film, and employs special effects and pointless action scenes to replace passages of dialogue.

50
Film Threat
Scott Mendelson
A 'so-so' movie. It's not particularly good, but it's competent and more or less successful in its goals.

50
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
The opening stretch, when the visitor arrives on earth and blithely dresses down mankind, is great fun. But screenwriter David Scarpi has drained away much of the sentiment.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Despite the best efforts of stars Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, this new "Day" is tired and corny.

50
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Something has been lost in the translation, and it's not just the script.

50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
As a message movie, it's preachy without being serious; for an action movie, there's a lot of racket but not much fun.

42
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
The original Day the Earth Stood Still had a paranoid poetry that lifted the audience up even as it warned the world to come together. This one is so dour it just comes off as a scolding.

40
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Any movie that awards a former Monty Python cast member a Nobel Prize in anything cannot be all bad. And The Day the Earth Stood Still could be worse.

40
New York Daily News
Joe Neumaier
The film's major action sequences are never exciting, and even the now-requisite destruction of New York feels lazy.

40
Variety
Todd McCarthy
This botched remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" seriously dishonors the seriously fine 1951 sci-fi landmark on which it's based.

30
NPR
Bob Mondello
Dunno about the Earth, but time certainly stands still for a goodly portion of Scott Derrickson's expensively produced but utterly boneheaded remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

30
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Klaatu is a dream role for the beautifully blank Reeves, since he doesn’t even have to pretend to emote.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
How can this movie not be fun?

20
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
A jumble of spare parts and leftover dialogue, as if it had been assembled out of unused bits of every movie where an unknown whatzit threatens our way of life and the government goes into full institutional pants-crapping panic mode.

20
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Dull, unnecessary film.

10
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
What's never explained is why anyone would do such a dumb remake of Robert Wise's 1951 sci-fi classic.

10
Time
Richard Schickel
Suffice it to say that these morons have, quite simply, turned The Day the Earth Stood Still on its head and what's falling out of its pockets in that upended state is a stream of junk.


The average user rating for this movie is 4.5 (out of 10) based on 128 User Votes
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