I am not one who is against remakes in principle, not even remakes of really good films. The Day the Earth Stood Still is, as far as I see it, a prime candidate for remake. It would be easy to update this story to comment on current times. Modern audiences, after all, are very little effected by the Cold War anymore. The makers of this new version do, in fact, attempt to relate their film to modern affairs. The alien visitor, instead of interfering over Earth's nuclear ambitions, comes to out planet in order to stop us from destroying our environment. That's a perfectly acceptable updating. Unfortunately, as is the problem with most remakes, The Day the Earth Stood Still '08 has the unmistakable aura of having been made for a quick buck. You remember there's a classic called this? Throw us a few bucks, and you won't have to sit through it in black and white anymore! And there'll be a couple explosions! It all feels so rushed and sloppily thrown together. Scenes contradict each other, little of the plot makes any sense. The visual effects are wildly uneven. Gort in particular is a computer generated monstrosity that looks like he's been imported straight from a Nintendo 64 game. Pretty much all of the actors don't seem to want to be there, and almost all of them give abysmal performances. We expect that from Keanu Reeves, but when Jennifer Connelly, who gives it her all even in junk like Hulk, phones it in, you should realize your project has little merit. The entire film is poorly paced and frequently stilted. It never works.