Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) -vs- The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Tough-Love, Alien Style

The Smackdown.  Klaatu and Gort are back in the 'hood thanks to the mega-budget re-make of "The Day The Earth Stood Still."  The duo arrives once again with every intention of forcing some extra-terrestrial "tough love" on us.  Keanu Reeves steps into the lead role made famous 57 years ago by Michael Rennie in the original, joined in this go-round by Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates and, surprisingly, John Cleese.  Certainly the overall production and effects budget makes possible images never even imagined back in 1951. But can all this money and contemporary talent add up to make this new "The Day The Earth Stood Still" as enduringly memorable as the old "The Day The Earth Stood Still" that graced the world's screens during the height of Cold War paranoia?   There's nothing to be gained by standing still -- so let's get to it.  Here's the intergalactic Smack...

The Challenger.  The talent behind this new 2008 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is certainly respectful of the original.  Director Scott Derrickson, producer Erwin Stoff and screenwriter David Scarpa have all publicly commented on how they understand that the earlier version is an acknowledged classic.  And they fully realize that, generally speaking, remakes are about as successful as a Libertarian running for office in the Lone Star State.  (An aside:  We hope Kinky will run for Governor again -- "Why the hell not?")  They also understand that, on rare occasions, a remake actually fares pretty well against the original.  "Sorcerer" compares favorably with "Wages of Fear," for example, as does "The Magnificent Seven" with "The Seven Samurai" and "The Birdcage" vis-a-vis "La Cage aux Folles."  Accordingly, the number of deviations from the earlier edition have been held to a minimum.  Gort is now a biological form and not a mechanical robot.  Likewise, Klaatu is now an alien in a human body, not an alien with a human body.  And, of course, the balance between story and special effects, between character-driven moments and action sequences, has been skewed as well, reflecting the advances in filmmaking technology and, presumably, present-day audience preferences.  Being the challenger against a movie that most sci-fi affecinadoes consider to be sacrosanct, the equavlaent in its genre to what "The Godfather" is to gangster movies, is a tough undertaking.  But then again, a beagle did win at Westminster...

War Of The Worlds (2005) -vs- Independence Day (1996)

From the Editor:  Humans must either have a self-esteem problem or just a paranoid mind-set but, in either case, there’s a constant stream of Hollywood films where aliens have to come and kick our butts.  As you’ll see from the polls at the bottom of this post, our global Smackdown staff managed to come up with twenty of them for you to vote on without even breaking a sweat.  As the world braces for the re-make of “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” we asked SmackRef Rodney Twelftree to put the two with the biggest box office so far in the ring together.  Thanks, Bryce...

The End of the World as We Know It... Again

The Smackdown.  If you had to choose death from above, would you pick the green lasers, or the blue beams of destruction?  It's "Alien versus Alien" today, technology against technology, human victory against germ warfare, as the horrific events of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise's "War of The Worlds" come up against the Roland Emmerich and Will Smith juggernaut of "Independence Day."  Both alien attackers are silent and oblivious to the pitiful cries of humanity as they systematically annihilate us.  If only they'd lived in the same cosmic neighborhood, maybe we'd have been spared their plans for global extermination.  But they both got off a clean shot at us and now it's pay-back time: into the SmackRing they go!

The Challenger from Mars. Starring a wounded Tom Cruise (who had, at the time this film was released, only recently jumped upon Oprah’s couch and made an utter knob of himself...) as the “everyman” Ray, who thinks only of himself, "War Of The Worlds" was a remake of the 50’s sci-fi classic, complete with lumbering tripod machines causing untold devastation on our planet. Alien's come to Earth and proceed to rise up from beneath the ground, obliterating everything and everyone with their deadly blue rays of destruction. Ray and his kids must make a harrowing journey from his home in New Jersey to Ray's ex-wife's home to escape the marauding invaders, however, this proves exceptionally difficult as humanity breaks down around them when the aliens pursue humans into the far flung corners of the planet. Spielberg took the premise of the original cult classic, amped it up to 11 and unleashed it upon a fear-ridden, anxiety-prone human world, tapping into the palpable tension around the globe in this current political and social climate. Proving to be a commercial juggernaut, "War Of The Worlds" rewrote the book on just how terrifying an full on attack from the stars could be.

Transformers (2007) -vs- Independence Day (1996)

From the Editor:  In breathless anticipation of the release of the re-make of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," we offer this Classic Smack to get you in the mood for aliens that have just plainly had enough of us puny humans.  Plus, at the end, you can vote in our two polls aiming to pick the BEST ALIEN INVASION films from the First Wave of the 1950s and the Modern Wave from 1970 to the present. Here's Beau DeMayo's 2007 SmackOff between a couple of very bad-ass invaders to get us started...  Thanks, Bryce...

Aliens in Really Bad Moods

The Smackdown.  Whenever aliens invade our planet, the vaunted resources of humanity's technological aggression pale in comparison to their greatest "weapon":  luck. Sure, the heroes of those films will preach about courage, history, and the innate goodness of humanity... but in the end, humans are just really lucky when it comes to aliens. The invaded humans of Michael Bay's "Transformers" are not only lucky but, like Oprah audiences, score nifty GMC cars in the process. Sad for Will Smith, the humans in "Independence Day" (or "ID4") just got a whole lot of combustible monuments, shot-down jets, and a drunk redneck tail-spinning in F/A-18 Hornet. But when it comes to balls-to-the-wall alien invasions, which movie's humans do a better job of not relying just on luck and special FX to make a good film?

The Challenger.  More than meets the eye...in a Michael Bay film?  "Transformers" was pitched to Michael Bay as a film about a boy getting his first car. Really, it's about a boy caught between two groups of alien robots whose intergalactic war has crashed landed on Earth. Fearful of the evil Megatron and his Decepticons, the monologue-fueled Optimus Prime and his Autobots enlist Shia LaBeouf's aid in finding the Allspark, a techno-mystical cube with the power to animate any mechanical form while also possessing the plot-convenient ability to destroy the very creatures it creates should screenwriters Robert Oci and Alex Kurtzman write themselves into a climax corner. By the end of the movie, I think I got that Megatron wanted this cube so that he could create a new mechanical army to take over Earth... but that was after two brain-busting hours of claustrophobic action, syrupy slow-mo shots, self-aware jokes, and bombastic explosions. On that subject...

Cold Warriors from Outer Space

Alien-Human Smackdown, 50s Edition

To help us celebrate the holidays this year, on December 12th, 20th Century Fox releases its remake of the classic 1951 sci-fi film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still," starring Keanu Reeves in the role of "Klaatu," first played by Michael Rennie 57 years ago.  Movie Smackdown will, of course, be putting the two films in the ring against each other and maybe even several times in different combinations.  To us, well, this is like an event of historical proportions.

Today we've asked SmackRef Bob Nowotny to get the laser beams flying by introducing us to the joys of 1950s sci-fi invasion films.  We knew he was the right man for the job since he actually believes, and I'm quoting:

"What one cannot argue (at least convincingly) is that any science fiction/alien invasion movie produced after 1959 is the equal of these well respected classics.  Yes, there have been subsequent science fiction films brought to the screen, but they are all pretenders to the crown."

After Bob's Blurb (note to Bob: we gift you this as the name of your next blog), you'll find a brand-new fresh-off-the-bus SmackPoll where you can express your own opinion(s).  Our goal is to find an "Alien Invasion" film winner from the Classic era, and put it up against a similar winner from the Modern era.  This is, admittedly, a pretty ambitious goal for a site run only on blood, sweat and tears but, given the subject matter, maybe the fate of the Earth rests on it.  In the meantime, here's Bob and his alien-infested trip down memory lane.

The Incredible Hulk (2008) -vs- Hulk (2003)

The Smackdown.  HULK SMASH!  I'm sorry, but I had to; it's just such a funny, quirky comic book phrase.  It's not often you get a Smackdown as clean as this one either where a project has been re-cast, re-conceived and the first director has been sent packing.  When you consider that The Incredible Hulk is the franchise follow-up to Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, you have to take into mind that it's the new Marvel Studios steering the cinematic wheel.  Its recent Iron Man proved a ridiculously profitable and critical hit but, quite frankly, I shuddered at the thought of a second motion picture tackling this heroic green figure after the first installment created such a controversial cinematic history (gamma Hulk poodles anyone?).  I can see the halls of Marvel Studios one or two weeks ago, brimming with newly starched suits and promiscuous congratulations over Iron Man's $530 million plus heist.  Now, a bunch of execs sit around a table -- bleary-eyed, ties loose, coffee cups empty, cell phones nearby -- hoping their new Hulk shares more than the color green with a one dollar bill.   So while those overpaid studio execs worry over that, let's have a Hulk-sized SMACKDOWN between Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk.  May the best conflicted angst-ridden monster win.

The Challenger.  The Hulk returns rebooted under the directorial guidance of Transporter director Louis Leterrier off a script originally penned by Zak Penn and rewritten by Edward Norton.  In The Incredible Hulk, Norton plays Stan Lee's classic Bruce Banner, a simple scientist whose brilliance leads to a tragic lab accident.  Now a fugitive from a military general who wishes to make him a weapon, Banner longs for a cure to his monstrous alter-ego and the forced isolation it demands.  Like Stan Lee's original Hulk, The Incredible Hulk focuses on Banner's struggle to contain this monstrous Neanderthal lurking inside him.  In fact, it's the film's petrol, blasting through Bourne-style chase scenes and WWF-style mutant throwdowns.  But like the green beast himself, Letterrier's film loses a bit of its humanity when it goes "Hulk."  Coupled with somewhat awkward pacing, the film may leave audiences like Bruce Banner after a "hulk-out": scratching your head asking where the hell am I and what the hell just happened?  Comparing the shooting script to the finished film, there are a plethora of scenes missing -- mostly character-oriented -- that would've better balanced the film.  Banner's therapy session with his lover's new boyfriend and Banner's attempted suicide are among them.  On top of this, some of the dialogue -- no matter how good the actor, or how green -- just can't be pulled off.