Netflix Self-Torture Experiment Trilogy #38: The Day the Earth Stopped
Wow…a knock-off of a movie that was already bad to begin with. (I’m talking about the remake, not the original.) I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well.
Synopsis from Netflix: C. Thomas Howell directs and stars in this sci-fi feature about giant robots from space descending on Earth’s largest cities. If humans can’t prove to their visitors that they’re worth saving, the powerful machines will annihilate everyone. Chock-full of screaming car chases and plenty of gunplay, the action-packed spoof of The Day the Earth Stood Still co-stars Judd Nelson, Sinead McCafferty, Darren Dalton and Reiko Kaneshiro.
My thoughts: Wow. Oddly enough, I think I liked this movie just as much as I liked The Day the Earth Stood Still. Admittedly that’s not saying much, but I was expecting something truly awful and that’s not what I got.
I suppose this film follows the same basic storyline as the one it was supposedly spoofing; to be honest, I don’t really remember or care. What I was happy about, however, was the absence of Will Smith’s annoying kid. (If you’ve been following these self-torture experiments over the past three years, you’ll understand why that’s such a big deal for me.) My only real disappointment was the relative lack of Judd Nelson. He was billed as the main co-star and yet he was only in the movie for at most ten minutes. Come on! It’s Judd fucking Nelson! Show some respect for the memory of John Hughes for God’s sake! [Two out of five stars.]
