The Day the Earth Stopped (2008)

Just perfect...

i must have seen a different film!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is another low budget rip off of a blockbuster remake from the Asylum film company. It's when you watch these films that you realise how they came up with the name 'Asylum'. Last night, it was my misfortune to watch this absolute bag of s**t. I watched it deliberately and, somehow, watched it all the way through. Where do I begin? I'm going to give you the entire film.Hundreds of massive robots land on earth and just stand around in the major cities of the world. A government taskforce, which is comprised of a bunch of w*******s, a 12 year old boy and C.Thomas Howell, sets up shop in a warehouse where there is a pointless bloke-needing-a-p*ss scene. Meanwhile a spacepod crashes in the woods. The pod contains an alien man and woman, both naked, who for some reason or another become separated. The taskforce shows up and captures the male after he has taken out half a dozen men using magic. Yeah, magic. The taskforce then assume that there must be another alien, what they base this assumption on is unclear. Anyway, still en route to the scene is Howell and his boyfriend. They find the female alien tarting down the road, give her a coat and take her with them. Once there, she then does the magic thing and is promptly shot and captured. The aliens are then taken to a low security warehouse for questioning but they ain't talking. Later on the woman learns to talk after reading Howells mind. She starts by repeating exactly what he is thinking. Apparently he thinks the bint looks like Angelina Jolie. Maybe he's blind or using a comparison of the way she likes to tart about with her tits out. She warns that earth poses a threat to other planets with its weaponry and that they are to be destroyed unless Howell can prove to her the meaning of humanity. He's got until the end of the day to do this otherwise the earth will be destroyed which we later learn will include the stopping of the earths core. Meanwhile, the military are having a go at these robots with missiles. Cue the worst scene of a fighter pilot supposedly in his cockpit. Missiles useless. planes destroyed. Then the woman uses her magic again and stops all things in the world that depend on electricity including cars leading me to question the purpose of the robots if she can do this. Anyway, with the power out Howell helps her to escape and takes her to his car. The car don't work though because she's knackered everything up. Howells commanding officer shows up to stop them escaping, aiming his gun at Howell. Tart magics the car into life and they drive off without any opposition from the c/o. As they drive around with Howell racking his brain as to how he can prove the meaning of humanity, they are carjacked. The carjacker says something along the lines of "there's aliens all over the world and you've got the only working car, blah blah blah". Reiterating that this car is the only car in the world that is working. After he's buggered off with the car and Howell and the tart are walking down the road, behind them another car drives past. Yes, another working car.it's possible, I suppose, that it's the same car and the bloke who nicked it just doesn't know where he's going. Later on, Howell see's his car that was just jacked and pulls out his gun and goes to get it back. It turns out that it's not his car but a similar looking and fully operational one driven by his boyfriend. They run and hide. Their pursuers catch up with them and Howell kills 2 of them and smacks his boyfriend with a truck door. A brilliant way to prove that humans are every bit as bad as the aliens think they are. During this scene another car drives past outside. Howell and the tart then get into the car and bugger off again. Down the road a bit, they come across a couple in the road who need to go to the hospital as the woman is in labour. En route to hospital, Howells boyfriend shows up again in another working car. They manage to escape to a warehouse where the baby is born. Howell uses the miracle of life to prove the meaning of humanity. The mother dies and the tart magics her back to life. slowly. job done. now to get her back to her spaceship. She gets shot and Howell has to carry her there. Then he gets shot and they both die on the ground at the feet of one of these robots. robot vapourises the bloke who shot Howell. Then the male aliens magically appears and brings Howell and the tart back to life. The male alien features at various points n the film but this is the only real purpose of him being in it at all. The aliens beam up into the robot and they all bugger off.

The special effects, acting, and directing is on par with your average B movie. No surprises there. And there are a lot of scenes I might have done differently had I done this film. But that's half the fun of it, thinking about what I would do differently. The SFX weren't too bad either. Well, the robots were pretty good at least.And the story is far more faithful to the original 1950's movie than that Hollywood piece of drivel they pumped out with the A-list actors and the so-well-known title. I'd say it's worth watching. And none of that crap about the environment in it. They stuck to the "humanity is too dangerous to be allowed free reign in the universe" line of the original. With a few twists thrown in for some flavor. All in all a fun little film.

The Day the Earth Stopped starts as hundreds of huge robots descend from space & land on Earth in hundreds of different locations, the authorities refer to them as 'Megaliths'. Then in Los Angeles a much smaller spacecraft lands & two naked aliens (Sinead MacCafferty & Bug Hall (!?!)) start wandering around, local army dudes including Private Josh Myron (director C. Thomas Howell) set out to capture the aliens which they do. After a while the aliens begin to talk & the woman nicknamed Sky says that the Megaliths have been sent by a distant alien race to wipe out humanity before it becomes a threat or something like that & that in order to stop them she must be shown the nature of humanity & why it must be saved. The evil authorities want to torture & drug Sky which doesn't go down well so Myron breaks her out & takes it upon himself to convince her that humanity is worth saving, well I feel a lot safer already...Directed by & starring C. Thmas Howell the IMDb would have you believe The Day the Earth Stopped was a homage to the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) but in actuality it's one of The Aslum's terrible 'Mockbuster' rip-offs, this time it's the big budget remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) with Keanu Reeves & in fact Twentieth Century Fox got their lawyers onto The Asylum but unfortunately they couldn't stop this terrible film from being released which is a shame as it would have saved me 90 odd wasted minutes. The Day the Earth Stopped is an absolutely awful film on every level, the script is terrible with awful character's & dialogue & a story that just makes no sense. If these aliens see us as so much of a threat why not just destroy us, why give us a chance at all? It's never really explained who the model like alien woman is or what power she has & that bloke alien basically does nothing the entire film & I struggle to see hwy he's even there. At 90 odd minutes it drags & is really boring with a predictable & lacklustre plot that has no momentum or excitement. Are we to believe when aliens land & threaten the very existence of all humanity the people trying to solve the problem will amount to about half a dozen soldiers & a guy in a suit? Then there's the supposed moral message about behind all the bad things in the world there's lots of good & we should never forget our humanity which is as subtle as a baseball bat round the head & very heavy-handed in a preaching moralistic sort of way that patronizes & induces tedium in equal measure. This whole film is a mess, it's boring, poorly thought out, moralising in the worse possible way & just plain rotten to sit through.If the story wasn't bad enough there's not even any fun to be had here, there is absolutely zero blood or gore & even when Sky gets shot while wearing a white top not one drop of blood is seen & the part when that woman gives birth in the back of Myron's car is ridiculous as it's got hair, totally clean & that bloke must have been a doctor since the umbilical cord was cut as well, the makers didn't even attempt to make the baby look like a new born child. There's the scene where someone remarks that all the cars have stopped working yet seconds later a car is clearly seen driving past in the background & then there's the usual awful CGI computer effects the least said about the better. Also while trying to save the world from complete destruction by gigantic alien robots the best we have have to work in what looks like an abandoned warehouse with about two computers & one table at their disposal. There are no action scenes, all the aliens look human & apart from a bit of nudity at the start this is PG rated stuff all the way.With the usual low budget of probably about $250,000 this looks awful with rotten CGI effects & terrible production values, the whole thing basically relies on fooling people into thinking they are going to watch the big budget version that came out at the same time & it's just wrong. Filmed in California. The acting is awful & are we really supposed to believe that model like woman is an alien who the very existence of humanity depends? She just looks so wrong for the part it's untrue.The Day the Earth Stopped is a terrible rip-off 'Mockbuster' from The Asylum, a company who quite simply make the worst films around & try to con people into buying or renting them by associating them with bigger better films out at the time. Have they actually made a good film? Watch the original The Day the Earth Stood Still or the remake instead as this is not worth your time.

I believe one of the reasons why so-called "A" movies have in general better ratings than "B" movies is the marketing campaign that helps to brain wash with delicious trailers the audience long before they even get to see the movie. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was no exemption, but after all the movie was not really that good, was it?Now "The Day the Earth Stopped" is IMHO much better than what you would expect from a "B" movie. Maybe the overall acting isn't that brilliant but you still develop an emotional connection with C. Thomas Howell and classic beautiful actress Sinead McCafferty. She reminds somewhat on Sophia Loren, or Brigitte Bardot but is still herself. How can one criticize on too much make-up? Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt or the Ladies in the 50ties utilized generous make-up as well. I did not think for a second about too much make-up. And, the role requires to portrait a mysterious perfect being from a different planet!! Sinead McCafferty knows how to act without saying too much, and it comes naturally, convincing, what else could you possibly want?Also, I strongly disagree with the critique on bad film music. The score may not be perfect in all scenes, however, the composer produced several beautiful tunes that make me reach out for the soundtrack.Cheers, TC