A schizophrenic film. Scott Derrickson has done his best to make a run of the mill CGI-enhanced sci-fi thriller but has found himself thwarted by the remarkable screen presence of Keanu Reeves and the ghost of Bernard Herrmann.<br /><br />Reeves was the draw for me; where some find him laughable, I find him sober and engaging. His alien-in-a-human is at once non-porous of emotion but registers the emotional to-ing and fro-ing that decide his actions. He's a classy screen idol, well-cast. The rest of the cast (the very capable Jennifer Connelly included) are at the mercy of a truly ridiculous story both in concept and in local narrative. The gravity of the situation in which humankind as represented by Americans finds itself is only captured in the single-gear performance of Reeves and the unobtrusive but peculiar 'Herrmann' score, resurrected for the film by Tyler Bates.<br /><br />There's a lot of silliness - a lot of cartoonish world's end drama which, strangely, doesn't do what it purports to which is update the 1951 original. It still feels dated. We are also presented with John Cleese as a Nobel Prize winner. Well that's also ridiculous on the face of it - but I tell you something, if the end where nigh and you wanted someone leftfield to plead your seemingly intractable case, you'd do a lot worse than Cleese. As a final oddity the product placement in the film seems at odds with the frowning upon consumerism that's at it's heart. Or maybe they're companies leading the charge to save the world. It's all a bit confusing. 4/10