'The Day the Earth Stood Still' doesn't do original justice

By Claudia Puig, USA TODAY
The best moment in The Day the Earth Stood Still is a throwaway line in which John Cleese is introduced as a scientist who won a Nobel Prize for "biological altruism."
What, exactly, would that entail? It sounds like something Cleese and his fellow Monty Python wits might have dreamed up. Actually, a good portion of this sci-fi disaster movie is unintentionally comical. And the parts that aren't funny are just plain dull.

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.

Keanu Reeves plays an alien with the catchy moniker of Klaatu who has traveled to Earth to warn of an impending global crisis. Taking this role seems to spell the impending end of his career. Why talented actors like Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm and Jennifer Connelly signed on is hard to fathom. Connelly plays a scientist who repeats "We can change" about a half dozen times in the course of begging Klaatu not to destroy the world. He doesn't buy it. While he's a "friend to the Earth," he's not too keen on the people inhabiting and polluting it.

The spaceship resembles a giant Christmas ornament, and some visuals look as if they've been borrowed from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The only bright spot in this lifeless story is 10-year-old Jaden Smith, who plays Connelly's stepson. He follows up his 2006 debut in The Pursuit of Happyness with an engaging, lively performance. In contrast, Connelly seems to be blandly going through the motions; Bates' blustery portrayal consists mainly of issuing orders and doomsday pronouncements.