The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Day the Earth was Quiet and All the Cars Stopped Working.

This is the working title for this movie, but it was later renamed to be closer to a 1951 cult classic.

I can say I was itching for the movie to get better at about the halfway point. Then the guy next to me looked at the time on his phone. The guys behind me started dissing Smith during his big solo and I could hear other people approving that this was a bit much for a 6 story tall IMAX screen.

The parts with Gort are really great, here is a part of the story that's completely CG and has very few human elements.
Gort's big numbers are:

1) The first encounter he goes ballistic after they shoot the Keannu Placenta - gross, eh?

2) They then try to get some drone aircraft and sidewinder-ify into Gort.
Gort blows all their shit up.

3) The put the giant fucking Gort in a giant fucking box.
Problem solved right? He's gonna have to get through the box to start fucking shit up so maybe they'll get enough warning...I dunno what these guys are thinking, but something logical should follow, right?

4) They move Gort to a undisclosed place and try and drill into his head.
The bit breaks and the angry general character in charge angrily orders a new one put on.

5) Gort turns into nanomachines, like tonnes and starts increasing his PPM in the atmosphere by consuming metallic items in the way, like that truck in the trailer. Or the stadium.

Gort has been my all time favorite robot for a while. Like...I'll have to make a list of my top 10 robots. Gort from the 1951 classic has always been a fucking tribute. The "special effect" of that day and age were tall boots and a 7'7" actor.
The new guy seemed to be what I had pretty much imagined from the get go, so I'd have to say I'm not that upset with it.

Then you have the Connelly factor. The only person who's acting pretty well to the phenomenon of life visiting Earth. The Cleese character is shitting himself with excitement. The Secretary of Defence/The World is about the last thing you would expect... she's acting like a bird with a busted wing that's all worried. Only it's not busted that badly, the bird is just a dumb bird. So, not a fan of the characters from Earth other than Connelly.

In the scene avec Cleese, nearly a third of the screen time is occupied by the introduction sequence involving Klaatu solving a math equation or some crap.
Ok, so their advance sure I guess that makes sense with the slightly predictable futuristic idea of a nanomachine gort.

But here's a real beef. There is an origin story that takes the audience by storm in the very beginning.
"Let's flex the sound system with a blizzard effect" said the producer after filming, "test audience is not happy"

Keanu was a 1928 arctic explorer before he transformed into Klaatu.
What? What the fuck, if one man can be... absorbed by the awesome-race why can't all humans?

Kind of a hole-ridden flick, but all and all it was a good time. Keanu was pretty awesome - he is really meant to be the one human that does not quite fit. He's always the "one" in every project he does, and I love him for it. Good work on his part I think. Good work is not the same as saying, "Killer performance" or "Oscar worthy" but for a career actor who takes it very seriously I think the end product speaks for itself. And that's why I went and saw it.