Customer Reviews

The Day the Earth Stopped

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

To compare this awful movie with "The day the earth stood still" is really unfair.
"The day the earth stopped" is so horrible and such a huge waste of time and money, that you would be better of wasting your time kicking yourself in the head.
It's absolutely impossible to say anything positive about this movie - other than I am glad I didn't have to pay to see it.

Ohh wait - there's one redeeming aspect: One of the "aliens" is an absolute knockout - in a kind of porn kind of way.

For a B-movie it belongs more in the eighties - with its very unconvincing scenery og more than unconvincing actors, and the dialogue is - well amateurish.

This movie was released straight to DVD, and it looks like one of those Scifi movies of the week, which once you get past the very cheap looking special effects doesn't have to be a bad thing. In the beginning of the movie we see a bunch of gigantic robots landing on Earth. At the same time two beings who look like humans land in a forest and are both captured fairly quickly and taken to a secret military complex. At first neither one of these beings talk but eventually the female known as Sky in this movie talks to Myron played by C. Thomas Howell. She informs him that she has the ability to read minds, and that the human race is becoming a threat due to there incresed technology with weapons, and unless she is shown the value of this planet and it's people by sunset the planet will be destroyed.

I can't compare this to The Day The Earth Stood Still, as I haven't seen it yet, however once this movie gets going it's actually not that bad, granted I would not pay ten dollars to see it in the movies, and would certainly never buy it, but it's not a bad scifi movie rental of the week kind of thing. So if you have a rental store, or service like a Netflix and are looking for a Scifi movie to watch on a Saturday night and can get past the low budget effects (Giant Robots and Airplanes look like they are out of a Gozilla movie) then I say give it a shot. I'm giving it a 2 out of 5.

Jut to make sure nobody else has to watch the movie...

In the end all the transformer like megaliths that just stand around and shoot off a couple lasers during the entire movie leave. As best as I can tell because the alien saw a baby being born.

In case that wasn't enough too keep you away...

Stupid movie, terrible acting, unrealistic physics in the CG (although some CG actually looked decent), the plot made no sense, people made decisions that were unreasonable, the science was not reasonable. Multiple EMPs wipe everything out in the entire world - shows globe with all lights going off, even in north america where it is supposed to be daytime as the world will end at sundown - sundown just in new york? the megaliths are everywhere...
alien chick gets a car started for dude, they get car jacked because it is the only working car, then a cop drives by in the background and soon after someone is calling on a cell phone to find their family

who writes this garbage?

I read a lot of complaints about how bad this movie was. In reality I think the producers of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" are giving it the bad reviews. It has been compared to the remake of this classic and even the producers of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" sue the producers of this film for its comparison. This may be why so many people are giving this film such bad reviews.

In reality this movie (in my opinion) is better than the Remake of "The Day the Earth Stood still". C Thomas Howell plays a great part and the effects are not really that bad considering this was suppose to be a B-Movie ripoff. Now a warning to some people who are easily offended -- there is some nudity in this film, but overall it is definitely worth the $6.00 most people are selling it for.

I just stumbled on it and watched it, thinking I'd last for about 10 minutes, but I ended up watching it to the end. This is low budget sci-fi with rather well done special effects where it counts, and some at least sort-of-likeable characters. C. Thomas Howell reminds me a little of Richard Dean Anderson. If you think of this movie as a long Outer Limits episode you might be able to lower your expectations and enjoy it.

Perhaps over the coming years we can look forward to "The Day the Earth Moved Not" and "The Day the Earth was Stationary" and "The Day the Earth was Put in Time Out". The possibilities are endless.

I did not know people could actually make a movie SO bad. A movie like this can have such great promise, but all too often it is just filled with stupid plot lines and horrible acting.

No one actually behaves as anyone really would. Like a child poking a lion while inside the cage with it.

No need to get into the plot at all - just an utterly stupid movie, doesn't even merit a review of the bad parts - it is all bad.

I was expecting "the day the earth stood still". Instead we got... something less. I kept waiting for something to happen, but alas, it remained consistently boring throughout.

I'm sure I've piqued your interest with that intro and you're wondering what you can expect if you decide to watch it, right?

Well, for starters you'll get a very poor sound track and musical score, uninspired dialog and zombie-like acting, one tarted-up and naked woman, lots of editing mistakes, disappointment that the large robots never really do anything, and the knowledge that you'll never get the 2 hours of your life back that you wasted watching the movie.

So if that "endorsement" has got you all lathered up and ready to watch, by all means get yourself down to the video store or order this thing up from Amazon right now. You may not respect yourself in the morning, but if you watch it in private you don't have to tell anyone what you did.

Not even worth a review. This company is putting out movies as fast as the good
one comes out...everything they do is crappy...their actors..their cgi .
They are just there to make a buck of us the suckers...suckers cause they have
great dvd covers...and we might just think...one day they'll have a good movie include in them....Not !!

Loved the movie. I am into B rated sci-fi movies. You must love these types of movies. The picture quality was good and I received it on time.

I heard one remark on this movie that goes something like this, "It's like they titled the movie using a thesaurus." Yeah, this movie feels a lot like they are "rewording" a mix of films in an effort to capitalize on as many themes as it can. I see elements of not only The Day The Earth Stood Still, but also films like Independence Day, 2001, Starman, War of the Worlds, and a dash of... oh I don't know... pick any Roland Emmerich world disaster film. There is even nods to The Matrix on the cover design. I'm sure others will find even more films this one borrows from. In spite of all this it's still a straight to video movie that on it's own merits is simply not well thought out, and the execution is just as haphazard for the most part.

The plot isn't the problem as it's straightforward. Hundreds of giant robots... 666 robots to be exact (these guys are really trying too hard to be ironic or poignant)... referred to as megaliths land all over the Earth. A naked "harbinger" and her naked sidekick also arrive (and this nakedness at the beginning of the movie is the sole reason for the R rating). They deemed us a threat to them and plan to irradicate the planet unless the people of Earth can convince the harbinger that we are worth sparing before sunset. Of course this message goes way over the heads of those in charge and begin to do all sorts of stupid things completely contrary to what they should be doing. Luckily one man has the good sense to listen, right?

Not too bad of a story in a nutshell, even if it's been done already. The defining moment of any plot, no matter how simple or complex it sounds in concept, is how well you can execute it on the script. One example (and I'm trying to stick with low budget action/thriller films to be fair) is Mad Max, which is just about a cop avenging his family's death from a bike gang. While it's not Shakespeare the movie could have went into a completely and horribly different direction if it weren't for the script paying attention to some details and focusing more on some character development.

The Day the Earth Stopped did have a some character development, but spent very little time on it. You do get a couple moments of a lucid script, however they are too few and far between compared to the elements of the script that I feel weren't well thought out. One speech between alien and soldier/father doesn't disuade the several instances of hackneyed dialog trying to push the story with the sublety of a sledgehammer.

What can make or break a script, no matter how it's written, is it's execution. Lets look at Blade Runner. Look at the script alone and you have a weak movie. It's just detective noir with very little detective work and an akward bit of romance thrown in. However, as anybody who has seen Blade Runner can tell you, the movie is a must see. Why? The movie didn't focus on the weak script. It focused on elements that enhanced the experience like the setting and tone while downlplaying any of the weaker elements. So even though the script couldn't carry the movie the movie still stood tall.

The Day the Earth Stopped didn't have execution down either. I know it's a low budget movie, but I'm not concerned with the fact the government command center was a collection of old CRT monitors and the same screen graphics over and over. I am not concerned so much with the fact it seemed it was enough to label somebody a soldier by putting a helmet on them and tying a grenade to their shirt. Lots of little faux pas and quirks like that all over the film (so much you can make a drinking game about it). What bothers me is the very simple things you can do to enhance a movie were ignored. Exposition through proper focus of what the camera is catching. Paying attention to subtle details that enhance the theme and mood. I would even be happy if they just had an editor to take into account plot consistencies. What they filmed and presented as a movie was weak. Weaker than the simple plot device or the unrefined script.

This being a sci-fi movie special effects come into play, and to be honest I have absolutely no problems with them. The aliens when they use their powers I feel were done the right way. Subtle enough with the right amount of cinematic flair. I will even go so far as to say even with a bigger budget I can't see a much better execution of those effects. The giant robots? They were done well too; especially for the budget. The flying scenes were akward and luckily extremely few. The rest were pitch perfect with slow and deliberate movements winning over flashy action, which would have killed their imposing coolness. So the one unadulterated plus on this film is how they handled the special effects, hands down.

The acting is very unbalanced. C. Thomas Howell stars and directs this film, and tries to hit the dramatic marks. For the most part he's not bad, but I have seen him do better. Too much of one emotion coming from him and not enough depth and range. Still he's part of the better group of actors. Sinead McCafferty seems to only be there for her looks (being the nude harbinger in the beginning of the film. I don't know if from lack of direction or lack of talent, but her character goes into inconsistent ranges from alienish to completely normal girl with no story queues to back it up. Darren Dalton plays a mostly one dimensional character with a single scene where he can play some depth. I do notice he sneaks in a little more dimension in the character a couple times, but overall it's a wooden performance. Bug Hall as the harbinger's assistance is the only one that plays his part with consistency. Stephanie Greco gets honorable mention as the unnamed government agent with no meaningful speaking part, but gets a fair amount of camera time just looking at a computer screen.

Music is as to be expected for a low budget sci-fi. It sounds like some guy on a synthesizer playing all the music queues trying to sound like a full orchestra in some parts and a club mix on others. The limitations are glaring instrumentally, but the music does hit the necessary level of emotion the film requires.

All in all The Day the Earth Stopped is weak low budget sci-fi movie that fails to make a difference due to both being too much like other sci-fi films and by not standing apart where it counts. I am thinking this movie is best viewed by those of you who are into filmmaking (science fiction especially) so you can use it as a training exercise as to what works and what fails in making a film. There are enough elements to show what does work within a limited budget as well as what "can" work if done a little differently. More importantly it can show a young and budding filmmaker what doesn't work and what to avoid.