Updated: A HD version is now available to view over at Apple - click here to watch it.
It’s July 4 in the States, and everyone's bunked off to eat hot dogs, drink beers, and cheer on Bill Pullman as he climbs into a fighter plane and kicks alien butt. Thank God, then, that studios have been kind enough to release some major trailers onto the net to keep us entertained in the meantime.
On another page, you can go to the quite-spooky-actually trailer for Alex Proyas’ Knowing, in which Nic Cage stumbles upon a secret code that predicts major catastrophes.
But right here, our attention is focused on another seemingly dark sci-fi: Scott Derrickson’s remake of Robert Wise’s 1951 classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still.
The trailer has just gone live at Variety, and though we – and hordes of film fans around the world – were a little wary, it’s an intriguing, if slightly disjointed, teaser.
In case you’re not sure of the story, it concerns an alien called Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie in the original, and Keanu Reeves this time around), who comes to Earth with a simple message for mankind: stop messing with the planet, or you’ll all die.
Of course, you could be forgiven for not gleaning that from the trailer, which implies that Keanu – appropriately blank-faced here - is an alien, but doesn’t give a definitive answer. Nor does it explain the plot, but we’re sure that’ll come in a later preview.
For now, what it does do is reveal the tone of the movie – ominous, serious – and sneak peeks at what looks like some startling effects sequences as something enormous rises from the ocean, and a destructive storm destroys a football stadium. You also get glimpses of Jennifer Connelly, looking stunning as the scientist who empathises with Klaatu, Kathy Bates, and a neat interrogation scene where Klaatu is being grilled by a government goon.
There are purists, of course, who will insist that this movie did not demand to be remade, but it seems to come with a new environmental message, and a scope that the original just didn’t have, for obvious budgetary reasons. And at the end, we get a very brief glimpse of Gort, the giant killer robot who acts as Klaatu’s bodyguard.
File under ‘promising’. Click here to see for yourself.