Tagline: “If the earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth survives.”
Translation: Those aren’t good odds.
The Verdict: The trailer for the completely necessary, Keanu-toplined remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (which hit theaters over the weekend, attached to Hancock) indicates that a new standard for pants-crapping terror may soon be set in the burgeoning global-warming-will-bring-about-the-apocalypse-really-soon-if-we-don’t-all-do-something-immediately film genre. In the original Day, humanoid alien Klaatu, upset with man’s careless deployment of nuclear weapons, shows his might by causing a temporary worldwide power outage, but leaves the planet mostly unscarred. In the new version, martians, angry over global warming, dismantle all earthly matter at the molecular level, beginning with our skyscrapers and football stadiums. We’re actually sort of interested, given that this looks more like a prequel to The Road than Spielberg’s not-great, cheery-by-comparison War of the Worlds remake. Sadly, the presence of another Will Smith offspring basically guarantees its failure at the box office.
