The Day The Earth Stood Still

This is one of my favourite all-time movies. Er... no, not quite. This is a remake of one of my favourite all-time movies.

Quite apart from the awful idea of remaking one of the best movies of all time... well, no, actually, I think that's bad enough. I don't know where to begin to slag it off. I'll try another tack. I'll try to say what was good about it.

....

No, that's not working, either. I'll try just short word groups and you'll be able to figure it out for yourself.

• Keanu Reeves as Klaatu;
• Gort as a nanotech swarm;
• American military attacking aliens with Predator drones (like firing arrows at a tank; seriously!);
• Everything else.

The best thing about the original film was that it tried to appeal to our better nature, while the remake just condemns our worst. The threat from old Gort is implied, while the new Gort wipes out entire towns and cities. The old movie was subtle, while the new is heavy handed and crass.

Actually, that may be the one good thing about this movie: it makes you realise how good the old one was. Not that I needed to know.