The Day the Earth Stopped

Some solid ideas save this from being a total washout.

Have to be honest and say that production values for the average 5 year old birthday party are higher than this - yet it is strangely watchable - it has moments that make you wonder what will happen next and how it will all end...

All in all if Sci-Fi wasn't your thing before you sat down to watch it won't be after either - but if any Sci-Fi is better than none at all you might be surprised at the fact that is is, despite a very low budget, actually watchable....

And it does kind of deal with apocalyptic themes head-on, all in all B minus.

there is really no reason to trash this film. Plot wise, its pretty solid with a nice tale. The effects are about what one would expect of a rather low budget film but they are OK. The cast is pretty solid, tho not Oscar worthy. The story revolves around a mysterious alien invasion that no one can figure out. There are religion undertones, and not so subtle ones at that. The aliens turn out to be powerful, God like entities that have come to determine the worth of the human race. Plan B it to knock the planet off its axis and destroy us. C Thomas Howell is fun to watch and he is a promising director. The movie moves along at a decent pace and never hits any truly boring stretches. I felt reasonably entertained and no, its far from the worse movie ever made like some sniffy Star Wars nerds commented here.

Blinded by the (formerly) not so bad rating, I decided to give it a chance.

At least it could have been some nice foreplay until "the one" with Keanu comes out. (pun intended) But it wasn't.

Where do I start ... bad BAD acting of almost everybody in the movie. Especially bad editing, sometimes there are cuts that have absolutely nothing to do with the current scene. Like near the beginning when you hear two people talking and at the same time see shots of people working silently on their computers. And don't get me started on the script.

Then there's the "logic factor" once again. 666 giant robots are landing on major cities on earth, yet there are NO people on the streets, no hysteria, not even simple curiosity. Everybody is rather calm, like this would happen every day. It's like we (the unfortunate viewers of the movie) get to see them, but nobody else, apart from the principal actors.

Like other people already mentioned, the superior aliens (in human form) are landing on earth. They have great powers and great knowledge. But a simple sedative knocks them out and an even simpler cell can hold them?

In general this *could* have been a nice variation on the original theme, that's why I gave it two instead of one points.

It may have been due to budget restrictions, or that they wanted to kick it out before the Keanu-movie. Either way, it did not do it any good.

As I said in the title: It's horrible in practically every way, don't waste your time on it.

Watch the original or wait for Keanu.

Within the first ten minutes I was thinking hard about if this was a very elaborate Youtube spoof or a serious film. The acting is so undeniably awful it makes you cringe. The camera work is cheap and amateur while the sound and lighting could be done by an undergrad making their first drama. You think I'm joking? Look for the massively over exposed shot at 00:09:98.

It just gets worse from here. Very low budget, poorly written and astounding that it made it this far. There is a weird mix between shots that blew the budget and money saving stuff that makes things look just plain nasty. How many times have you seen a government agent jumping from an expensive black truck only to start setting up a fold out table for his equipment? Mix this with cheap CGI and you have an instant looser. Should have been killed in pre-production. Watch if you want to know how not to make a feature film.

*shakes head*

My grade-school aged children confused this with the similarly named Hollywood movie. I tried to warn them, but they insisted this looked good. The acting was so bad I left the room about 30 minutes in. My son called me back a few minutes later to point out how bad the *lighting effects* were. He's never critical of acting, let alone of lighting. Honestly, if a 5th grader is able to find serious flaws everybody involved with this film should be ashamed.

I'd like to say something good about this film, but I can't think of anything. At least in my case it was a free rental, so I didn't waste any money on it.