Saturday, November 28, 2009

Film Friday: The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)

This film is the greatest film of all time. You must see this film. Indeed, they should force school children to watch it. Forget the original, the new The Day The Earth Stood Still, staring Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, imparts just the kinds of values we need in this horrible, capitalist world.

** spoiler alert **

The Day The Earth Stood Still begins when the fascist pigs grab Demi Moore... er, Jennifer Connelly. Connelly plays a scientist, but the good kind. She doesn’t make weapons or work for the military industrial complex or for evil corporations, she works at a nice northeastern university. And her students love her! Oh she’s wonderful. She’s a liberal who speaks her mind. She speaks truth to power, she drives a Prius (actually it’s a Honda but it looks like a Prius), and she’s raising a little African-American child (his father died in one of George Bush’s wars).

What? Oh no no, he wasn’t that kind of soldier, Dr. Jennifer never would have married that kind of soldier. He was an engineer. He went “over there to build” stuff. And while they don’t specifically tell us what he was building, I’m sure it was schools, not roads or power plants or oil refiners or other environmentally unfriendly structures.

Anyway, the kid. . . I don’t recall his name, but it doesn’t matter. He’s so gosh darn cute! He’s like a young Obama! The moment I saw him, I said, man I hope he saves us all. But, as I said, before we get to little Obama, the film begins with the fascists. After the fascists grab Dr. Jennifer, we learn that a spaceship is headed straight for New York City. In addition to Dr. Jennifer, the fascists have grabbed a rainbow coalition of scientists. I think the fascists are trying to kill this rainbow coalition because they're taking them to New York City and we're told the spacecraft is moving so fast it will wipe out New York City. So when the evil military claims it wants these scientists to “observe” the million megaton-explosion from the air. . . a few hundred feet above the city, I can only assume this is a complex attempt to kill these scientist. Isn't that just like the military?

Anyway, the ship turns out to be a huge glowing marble. From the marble comes a creature. And just as Dr. Jennifer walks up to it to speak to it, an evil soldier shoots the creature. Long story short, it turns out to be Al Gore. OMG he plays this role perfectly -- he wanders around like a wooden robot saying amazing things so prophetic I honestly had a hard time understanding them. I felt I learned so much watching him in this film. Al Gore wants to speak to our leaders at the United Nations, but Hillary Clinton won’t let him. She's the Secretary of Defense and she's rotten. She's no Dick Cheney, but she's no Obama either.

Dr. Jennifer helps Al Gore escape and they ride around the country in her Prius. Al Gore meets some old Chinese dude who turns out to be one of Al Gore’s people. He says we’re an evil race and we can’t change, so while he loves us, we need to be exterminated. Al Gore agrees. Al Gore then goes to a swamp in New Jersey where he finds a glowing bubble that isn’t radioactive waste. When he touches it, some of the animals on the planet get transported into space. Al Gore then explains that the world has reached a tipping point and evil humans are on the verge of permanently destroying the planet. So he’s come to wipe us out to protect the Earth, because it’s one of the few planets in the universe that can sustain life.

Meanwhile, there’s this evil general or colonel. I’m not sure which. He’s got a moustache which reminds me of the old West, or that guy from the Village People, and I think he keeps yelling “yee haw!” and “kill it” but that could be my imagination. He tries several times to blow up Al Gore’s marble in New York because that's exactly what the military would do -- try to destroy an alien race for no reason whatsoever! I hate them so much.

In the process of trying to destroy a robot that came with Al Gore, the military unleashes a killer storm of metallic insects from inside the robot that eat everything. Al Gore explains to Dr. Jennifer (after a quick visit with Dr. John Cleese), that there is nothing he can do. And then the miracle happens. The fascists capture Dr. Jennifer, leaving Al Gore with little Obama. Little Obama explains that while he originally wanted to kill Al Gore when he first saw him, because he thought Al Gore was a danger, he no longer wants to kill Al Gore now that he realizes that Al Gore means us no harm and has no choice but to kill us.

Weeeeeellll, this little admission was all it took for Al Gore to see the error of his ways. He now decides not to destroy the human race. At first, I felt let down by this. But then Al Gore promised there would be a price! Long story short, Al Gore stops the insects and saves us all. But to do so, he wipes out all of mankind’s evil mechanical creations. No more cars, no more machines, no loud ambulances or fire trucks, no more trains or ships delivering "goods" and "food" to evil consumers. I don’t know what happened to the airplanes, but I guess they all landed ok.

In the end, you can’t help but feel hopeful for the future! This was an environmentalist dream come true, a super race come to save the planet from us and show us a better way! Dare I say, it almost felt enviro-pornographic! Oh, it was beautiful.

Wait a minute. . .

While it is true there would be no Starbucks anymore, there also wouldn’t be any food staples. Hmm. Mass starvation is no big deal, I guess. After all, they’re only humans. But those hungry humans are going to eat every animal they can find. And without all of the machinery to help them, they’re going to need a lot more farmland to survive. Shoot. That means they’re going to cut down the forests. . . at least those that are left after they cut down all the trees for firewood. Wow, that’s a lot of carbon that’s going to be released. I’ll bet they won’t even worry about the delta smelt! And what about nationalized health care? There really won’t be any health care. Even things like antibiotics will only be available to the lucky few who know the right kind of doctor that they can barter with.

That sucks.

You know what? Now that I think about it, this film sucked too. Wooden acting (if you can call it acting), a pathetic plot that made little sense, constant blasting of the same liberal bullsh*t message, indifferent sets, effects and costuming, contradictions galore, and it will bore you to tears.

Up yours Al Gore.

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10 comments:

Unknown said...

Andrew: I take it you didn't much care for the movie. But thank you for mentioning the delta smelt (as opposed to the Delta smelled--that's New Orleans). I'm planning on giving the little fishies a boost on our Monday posts.

Meanwhile, back at the movie. It took me about five minutes into it to start swearing, and another fifteen to start believing this was actually a parody. But no such luck, they actually believe this crap. What's a poor human to do? All in all, I think you were rather kind. Very funny stuff.

PS: I still love the original, despite the passage of nearly sixty years since it was made. Maybe the UN and robots don't know what's best for us after all, but at least their heart was in the right place. The new version had neither heart nor brain. And speaking of robots, what's little Obama up to today?

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, Does my disgust show?

Seriously, what were they thinking? This movie was preachy beyond preachy. It was obnoxious, nonsensical, and unpleasant. I can't think of a single thing that I liked about this film.

As for the original, I really liked the original as well. It's heart was in the right place and it is one of the classics of science fiction. The re-make is a turd that deserves to be burned in an environmentally filthy furnace, with the remains buried in spotted owl lands.

Writer X said...

Andrew, preachy was an understatement for this movie. I fell asleep after the first 15 minutes. Character development for Jennifer and Keanu went about as deep as a thimble. Great review! Very accurate! And I think it bombed at the theatres, too. No big surprise.

Loved the original, though.

StanH said...

Gosh Andrew, what do you really think? This movie really did suck.

When the movie was over, and the lights mercifully came up, my wife and I realized, environmentalist had set up spanking stations, to give everyone a good spanking for being evil American consumers, weird.

AndrewPrice said...

Writer X, Thanks. I can totally see why you fell asleep. You were lucky. . . :-(

It did bomb. And interestingly, it bombed so completely that even the HBO/Stars/Showtime people aren't showing it in any heavy rotation.

AndrewPrice said...

Stan, You and your wife were right. This was pure propaganda. Seriously, they just hit you over the head with these heavy, heavy messages. What a waste.

El Gordo said...

I think it says something about America that this movie made no money in the US though it did better overseas (34% vs. 66%). Something good.

Other examples where domestic grosses proudly lag the rest of the world are:

The Happening (30%/60%)
The Golden Compass (19/81)
And of course all the Iraq war movies like Lions for Lambs (24/76)

"2012" while quite successful seems to be heading for a similar split.

Perhaps Americans don´t like to watch antihuman, antichristian or plain antiamerican movies. And disaster movies where you just have to take it and try to stay alive are so 1970s.

AndrewPrice said...

El Gordo, Welcome. I think you're absolutely right. It shows that the public is getting sick and tired of the over-the-top liberal message movies. People don't believe the message and they don't want to be hit over the head with it when they go out to be entertained.

MegaTroll said...

What a crappy movie. I saw part of it before changing the channel. Nice call on Reeves being Al Gore!

AndrewPrice said...

Mega, you were apparently smarter than I was! LOL!

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