Balför

So we move into the final week before the annual festival of hanging dead horses in the trees in celebration of the end of the year. I have a been reflecting on a few things this week, one thing I have realised since Justin and Lucy left is how much I miss my good friends back in the UK. Only having a few days at Christmas just isn't enough time to catch up with people. I know I will not be seeing as many people as I want to over the next couple of weeks, but it will have to do.

On Monday I noticed that the Day the Earth Stood Still had been released. Or should I say, re-released. This is the remake of the classic, dare I say it, Seminal 1951 movie. The original is incredibly subtle and mature for the time it was made. It still has resonances 50 years after it was made. Poor old Keanu Reeves had a lot to live up to...

I'm afraid he didn't. It starts off OK, and follows the original quite closely, even thought the effects of Gort are terrible. But it rapidly goes downhill, there are scenes which make no sense (one in a railway station, where Klaatu is seen by a child manipulating a vending machine, but with no conclusion. During the same scene two men brawl over a train ticket, again with no conclusion.), it rolls along to a confused ending with plenty of Hollywood style effects thrown in for good measure. One of the most annoying things is the inclusion of a step-child of the main female protagonist. Not only is she white and he black (flying the flag for cross racial PC bullshit, whilst still being racist. Why couldn't it be a black step father with a white child? Because... shhhh, of ingrained racism in Hollywood...), but he's the most annoying child actor one could hope to spend the misfortune of watching for two hours. Mop topped and feisty he seriously should be left to the fate of falling into the river that Klaatu saves him from. Why do kids in films always have long hair? In my day all the kids I knew had shaved heads, mind you, that was to stop them getting nits off each other and so their hair wouldn't get tangled up in the machinery of the Dark Satanic Mills that we all worked in Up North. I digress.

To be fair, Keanu Reeves is pretty perfect as the emotionless Klaatu, he seems to have drifted happily into these kind of roles since doing the sham that is The Matrix. Anything that allows him to stare absent mindedly into the middle distance like a robot and half whisper some bullshit that is supposed to be profound is perfect for Mr Reeves. He still can't shake that Bill and Ted cloak though, eh? I expect people will be shouting 'Awesome' and twiddling air guitars during his funeral. Poor bloke.