Only at the precipice of destruction will we change
This was my first IMAX experience, and the sharp, crisp clear quality alone was mesmerizing with the cinematography fusing well with the format. The graphics and special effects were spot on. But, a few times it was painfully obvious you were watching digital effects which have the surreal effect of taking you out of the action from time to time. For example there is a scene where the NY Giants stadium is shredded by an alien storm, and it was so obviously done with digital imaging which lacked any real emotion as it was an empty stadium, there was no other for the storm to react with – just a shell, albeit Eagles fans will no doubt cheer the stadium’s demise.
The whole movie has a kind of numbed down quality to it, where nothing seems real. It opens very well in 1928 and kind of plummets from there dramatically, yet there are a few one-liners that will get a limited reaction out of audience members. And the film is layered, so you could watch it many times and get different things from it, but unless you are a sci-fi junky, I wouldn’t recommend seeing this film more than once. Keanu Reeves, as the classic Klaatu character, is terrible at times supported stoically by Jennifer Connelly as his savior, Dr. Benson.
Kathy Bates and Jon Hamm performed well, with John Cleese lending his superb skills as the didactic Prof. Jacob Barnhardt. Jaden Smith was poorly directed – seeming almost bored the world was about to end and flipping through the channels with an oh-well expression on his face as his entire planet faces presumed extinction. A far cry from what I would expect even the most rebellious teenager to display were the end really near in modern times. Director Scott Derrickson didn’t hesitate to plug in some blatant product placement which I will leave to you to find – you could almost turn this film into a drinking game trying to spot the obvious logos, some subtle, some more obvious.
The GORT character was spectacular, and whoever was involved with his design and characterization did a brilliant job with a pithy nod to Maximilian from Disney’s The Black Hole. GORT was probably the best actor in the film and devoid of any lines. The military characters were disappointing and unbelievable, at best, and downright inept throughout, with few exceptions.
Overall, this was a good film, there were just a few scenes that really detract from the story and seemed out of place. Also, like the original, the whole film is an unapologetic sermon against humanity’s destructive nature. The message is more modern, but also kind of hard to swallow, as we are led to believe that an alien civilization has been monitoring our actions for centuries, yet has never heard Bach? I hate those kinds of gaps in a story’s continuity, where a character is granted omnipotence with one stroke of the pen and is clueless when it is convenient for the story to move along. If screenwriter David Scarpa had done his homework, he could have turned in a much better and more believable story – even in the sci-fi format, there are expectations of reality.
You’ll probably like this film, so go check it out, and if you can see it in IMAX – you will be super-stoked by all the GORT scenes, it is worth the extra cash to see his bad ass on that big ass screen!
