"Klatuu Barada Nikto"

More of a "re-imagining" than a remake of the original 1951 film of the same name, The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) stars Keanu Reeves (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Matrix 1-3, Constantine) as the enigmatic space alien in a cloned human body Klatuu. While in the '51 film, Klatuu comes first to educate, then ultimately threaten the humans of earth against the dangers of nuclear weapons, in the 2008 version, Al Gore Klatuu instead warns against the effects of global pollution, warning that the humans of earth will be exterminated before the council of alien races that he represents allows the humans of Earth to push Earth's global climate past the tipping point toward certain doom for the planet.

So once you get past the barftasticly heavy-handed egocentric martyrian algorian fear-mongeringly environmentalist premise, this is a pretty damn good movie. Klatuu rides his clearly hybrid sphere of annihilation down into the middle of central park assumedly because he got directions from the Beyonder. Klatuu rolls out of his sphere to do the standard take me to your leaders thing, but unfortunately, instead of space-kevlar he was wearing his best blubber suit, that while impressive and fashionable, just won't stop the bullet from a sniper who's been playing too much Call of Duty. Naturally when he wakes up in federal custody, being told that he can't talk to the United Nations by that psycho chick from Misery (Kathy Bates as Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson), he doesn't want to stick around and get hobbled in his newly-grown clone body, so thanks to space-alien sympathizer Dr Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly – Labyrinth, Career Opportunities, The Hot Spot) he's not too drugged to use his alien mojo on the administrar of his polygraph and gets the hell outta dodge. While they slip away from authorities, they visit another space-alien-in-a-cloned-human-body at a McDonalds (hey, just because this film is about preserving the health of the planet, that doesn't mean they can't take product placement money from the joint that brought about the events in Super-Size Me). This sleeper alien is played by the ever-awesome James Hong (Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Kung Fu Panda) who reveals to Klatuu that while he has witnessed humans' violence and lack of environmental stewardship, he also has seen another unexplainably appealing side and he loves the human race and is willing to die as one of them.

Klatuu picks up a McRib and a Shamrock Shake and he and Dr Hotness Benson and her otherwise-orphaned stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith – The Pursuit of Happyness) and head out to the orchard/swamp to look for one of Klatuu's earth organism collecting mini-spheres. While they're there, a local deputy finds them and Klatuu runs him over to death with the Doctor's car right in front of the kid and then spends a rez to show that while he hates the human race as a whole, he doesn't hate individuals.

After all that, they're fully on the run from the authorities, so Dr Benson takes them to hide out with her friend Professor Barnhardt (John Cleese – Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Time Bandits, Harry Potter 1-2, Shrek 2-3) where Klatuu finds a conveniently unsolved astrophysics problem on a chalkboard and solves it, proving that he is… well, mocking the earthlings in their final moments, as elsewhere his giant security robot has dissolved into nanites that are replicating themselves and disintegrating everything in their path.

The human race is doomed, and no matter how much Klatuu has changed his mind about destroying them and their instruments of pollution, there's nothing he can do at this point… or is there?

Extras
The 3-Disc Blu-ray Edition comes with the 2008 Feature on Disc One, a Digital Copy on Disc Two, and the 1951 Feature on Disc Three. Disc One comes with the following special features as well:

• Commentary with Director David Scarpa
• Picture-in-Picture BONUSVIEW – showcasing one of the many glories of Blu-ray
• Klatuu's Unseen Artifacts – Get your mind outta the gutter!
• Build Your Own Gort – It's like Build-a-Bear, but with a giant deadly robot!
• Deleted Scenes – Few and rightfully cut, but worth a watch anyway.
• Re-imagining the Day Documentary
• Unleashing Gort Featurette – amusingly circular brainstorming that leads through some awesome concept art then almost back to the beginning.
• Watching the Skies: In Search of Extraterrestrial Life Featurette – I want to believe.
• The Day the Earth Was Green Featurette zero footprint filming!
• Still Galleries
• Enhanced for D-Box – Rock and Roll

Overall
Despite the eye-rollingly banal eco-premise, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a solid film with interesting characters and impressive special effects and this 3-Disc Edition is the one to own.

Also worth noting is the sound. With a beautiful score and a foley team that says more with moments of silence than some other movies can't manage to say with a feature full of effects, dialogue and music, you want to hear this at its best, and as you know, that's only going to happen on Blu-ray with its Dolby Digital DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. You'll want to see those tiny little nanites at high resolution as well of course, so with Blu-ray it's 1080p for you.

ComicsOnline gives The Day the Earth Stood Still 3-Disc Blu-ray Special Edition 3.5 out of 5 deadly alien robots.