It seems that Hollywood is on a remake tear. One out of every few movies is a remake of an older film. That’s okay. I don’t mind the occasional “re-envisioning” or what have you. It gives filmmakers a chance to breathe new life into classic stories and take them in new directions. And I admit that it is possible for a remake to be better than the original. While it’s expected that one will note the difference between the original and a remake, the remake should be judged on its own artistic merits (or lack of them).

Enter the new Keanu Reeves flick The Day The Earth Stood Still. I have seen the original and I enjoyed it. It was a great social commentary and a very effective “get your shit together or else” movie for its time. If you take the things that made the original film a classic, water them down or toss them completely out and substitute them for politically correct mush, couple that with a horrible story structure, mix in a generous helping of CG visual effects and you have yourself a bona fide remake. A really crappy remake, but one that the studio gave the green light for some inexplicable purpose.

Keanu Reeves plays the part of Klaatu, an extraterrestrial visitor with a specific mission. He needs to speak to the leaders of Earth’s nations. The U.S. Secretary of Defense, played by a talented and (thankfully) fully clothed Kathy Bates, regards him as a threat and tells him “no”. At this point in the story, Klaatu basically says to himself, “okay then. To hell with these idiots,” and begins the “process” of saving the Earth. Which amounts to killing off all the humans because we’re such meanies to the poor defenseless planet.

The disturbingly bushy-browed Jennifer Connelly is now relegated to staring into the distance while crying and urging Klaatu not to destroy us all. “We can change! We can change!” Impressive for a character who, up until this point, was an accomplished astrobiologist. All hell breaks loose and no one on Earth knows why except for Klaatu, the whiny doctor lady and her belligerent stepson. Everyone else is left to assume that aliens are just a bunch of human-hating bastards.

Klaatu is all business. Detached and impersonal, he displays the ability to control and manipulate electrical currents and frequencies. Perhaps he is not as unassuming as he originally claimed. Events continue to unfold, but they unfold in a vacuum. Nobody knows what’s really going on unless they happen to be standing there when it happens. In the original movie when Klaatu shuts down all the power across the globe for exactly 30 minutes, it’s done as an attention-getter. In this movie, it happens for a completely different reason and no one really knows why. They just figure the power is out & go about their business.

At the end of the day, there’s a lot of action and the special effects are interesting. But the bite has been taken out of the story and the viewer in the audience is left pondering the same questions that are in the minds of the actors on screen during the power outage. “What the hell just happened? And why should I care?”