The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

The remake closely follows the spirit of the 1951 original while updating the threat to environmental catastrophe. It succeeds as a relevant, tense thriller with a strong central performance from Keanu Reeves.

The critic finds it entertaining tongue-in-cheek tosh with strong effects and a hypnotic Reeves performance, though the message could have been delivered more simply.

The remake thoughtfully explores sorrow over a suicidal race for part of its runtime but lacks the courage of its convictions and is irritatingly broad about why humanity might need to die. It prioritizes special effects and military details over meaningful contemporary relevance or emotional stakes.

The critic calls it a fatuous and pointless remake that ditches the original's subtext and suffers in comparison, though passable on its own terms with good CGI action.

A sluggish reboot that merges action and family drama unsuccessfully, with overdone seriousness and only Reeves somewhat effective as the alien.

The remake invites viewers to feel fleetingly bad about humanity's fate while encouraging them to laugh it off as camp, turning the fear of apocalypse into something more palatable. Any hope that the film might rise above its pulpy silliness rests mainly on Keanu Reeves' performance as the weary extraterrestrial Klaatu.

The inert remake misses opportunities and feels limp and perfunctory in its environmental update to the original premise. Wooden archetypes and amateurish effects fail to make a compelling case, though the tossed-off moral minimizes preaching compared to the predecessor.

The critic calls the film a stupendously dull remake of the 1951 classic, with Keanu Reeves giving a torpid performance as the alien Klaatu.

The critic finds the remake tired and corny despite the efforts of its stars. It updates the story with a green theme but delivers the message in a gimmicky, dated way that falls far short of the original in ideas and issues.

This daft and pointless sci-fi remake has very little to recommend it, being tonally confused, poorly cast (especially Reeves), and missing the original's spectacle and message.

This botched remake seriously dishonors the fine 1951 original by failing to justify the reworking with any deep thought, as the premise now feels overly familiar. The film lacks primal defining imagery and sticks to dull, uninteresting versions of the source material's characters and plot points.

The remake is as dull as ditchwater with nothing new to add; Reeves has the charisma of a speak-your-weight machine and Derrickson directs without inspiration.

The critic views the remake as a sincere, reasonably coherent attempt to update the classic for modern blockbuster audiences, praising Keanu Reeves' fitting performance as the alien Klaatu while noting it prioritizes effects over the original's ideas.

The critic criticizes Keanu Reeves' wooden performance and the film's lack of emotional depth or character development, calling out clichéd plotting, soulless CGI effects, and failure to match the original's sophistication or relevance.

The critic finds the remake a dull, humorless travesty with little action beyond CGI flashes and unengaging performances, especially from Keanu Reeves as an emotionless Klaatu. It praises the basic concept of saving Earth from humanity but criticizes the execution as a lifeless script weighed down by seriousness.

The critic pans the remake for stripping out the original's strengths, replacing them with poor CGI, unexciting chases, and a heavy-handed environmental message; praises John Cleese's small role as the lone bright spot.