The days when Hollywood once turned out such classics as the l951 THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, are long gone. When we go to the multi-plex today, we're treated to endless, lousy remakes of Asian horror flicks, endless sequels (i.e., Saw, Alien, Terminator, Halloween, etc.) that squeeze every drop of magic from the original until there's only a dried up rind. This remake of The Day the Earth Stood STill, is a perfect, sorry example of what passes for movie sci-fi/fantasy in the year 2008. While the l951 original still fascinates with its powerful acting, script, production and that fabulous Bernard Hermann's musical score, this new take features a shockingly inept cast and grade-Z special effects.<br /><br />We're treated to a zombie-like Keanu Reeves who shows the emotion of an oyster. His face and eyes never change expression. His voice sounds like a dead man. His fellow living corpse is Jennifer Connelly who acts as if she exists in a different universe with no connection to what's happening around her. Even worse, is the obnoxious, surly black kid, Jaden Smith (oh, yes, son of the mighty Will Smith) who is so repulsive you wish the giant robot Gort would zap him off the screen. It's as if the movie makers are so fanatically politically correct that they gave us a black child who is supposedly adopted by a white woman, Jennifer Connelly. They have no rapport, but then the child is so hostile, one can understand why. One of the key figures in the original was the young boy played by the wonderful child actor, Billy Gray. He was so genuinely sweet and likable that you really loved him. When he shows the alien the memorial graveside of countless dead military men and women, and then visited the Abraham Lincoln memorial, you were profoundly moved. When Jaden Smith does this in the remake, a glycyrine tear dribbles down his cheek ss he glares sullenly at the zombie-like Reaves. Wow, what a really down, hostile scene.<br /><br />There's no sense of impending disaster and when the day finally comes for the Earth to stand still, a swarm of badly executed CGI bugs destroy Yankee Stadium and then stop. Keanu Reeves has obviously discovered that mankind isn't all evil. That's because the black kid and his mother have persuaded him that there is still good in the human race. If only, there was some good among movie makers, the type of goodness that would persuade them to give us some original, scary movie magic--like Alien, The Thing, The Terminator, halloween, etc.