Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The day the Earth stood still. And when we voted we could change. Something.

Keanu Reeves is a lucky actor if there wasn't a lack of them out there. That doesn't take away how well he has integrated Hollywood's penchant for churning out one sci-fi movie after the other and his ... wait for it... thespian abilities. No, this is not a 'Keanu can't act' free for all, but since watching Bill & Ted's most bodacious , righteous and excellent adventures, that tag is hard to shake off. So if you haven't figured it out already, our man is not of this planet. The events unfolding in the movie were set rolling when a mountaineer (with a shocking resemblance to Mr. Reeves himself) stumbles upon an 'unearthly' orb. What have we learnt as humans thus far, kids? You see something new? What are you waiting for? Take your chisel and put a hole through it.

Turns out, the aliens were watchmen for our planet and decide enough is enough. Invasion time! Speaking of niches and actors, Jennifer Connelly has one of her own. It is called the sympathetic woman. It is not a terrible byline, but after that Beautiful Mind movie and then that Hulk movie it is getting very tiring. Connelly is an incredibly brilliant researcher at Harvard. This time the scientist is an astro-biologist. The astro prefix is getting a little out of hand. Astrophysics is the last believable astroscience. Ok sorry Astrology also because I love my grandmother very much. I wouldn't be surprised if the next incredibly hot scientist lady is an astronanobiotechnologist with left - liberal leanings. Ok Ok. The movie. I digress. The alien, after spilling out of the spaceship takes on a human form with the mountaineer's features and he kicks butt. Thanks mostly due to presence of a robot that accompanies him in his spaceship. His eye is a laser light that scans everything around him. Like a new age Eye of Sauron, only much lamer.

He comes stumbling out in New Jersey because who cares about other countries. Right? Right. He is weak, but he gets better and conveniently for us he learns our languages. There is chaos because we have spaceship in our hands. So Mr. President goes absconding and only Secretary of State handles everything. She is played by the lady who played Adam Sandler's mom in The Waterboy. You know 'foosball is the devil'. I kid you not. He escapes, she helps, yada yada. So why is he here? The earth is not ours itseems and he says we are ruining it and so he is doing some last rites thing. But he still balks. And this is the centerpiece of the movie. "Can we change?" The entire movie is about how he thinks we can't change while our scientist friend vehemently argues the contrary. After some more sophomoric conversations between him and ,would you believe it John Cleese, who plays a Nobel Prize winning biologists whom Mr. Reeves disproves by crossing an equal to sign on one of his equations. Awesome. I'm sold now.

It's the most excruciating game of tag played out on cinema, ("you won't change", "yes we will") while the earth is already on its path of destruction, with a little help from some nanobots. But suddenly our man says, "ok, your dead husband's black son from a previous marriage hugs you after yelling at you the entire length of the movie. You can change" He then does some alien magic and it's all good. No end of the world. Remember when your 6th grade teacher would tell you about the evils of littering. Watch this movie if you didn't go to school that day. But if I didn't go to school that day, how can I remember if... Yes you're right. Don't bother.

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