We went to see this movie last night at the Showcase on their IMAX screen. Based on the reviews we figured that playing up the special effects might be just the thing. There were about 10 of us in the 7 PM show.
We were in the mood for some unchallenging fun and that is pretty much we got. I thought it was much better than the low tomato rating it received at rottentomatoes.com and also much better than Australia. At the same time, it is not great art either. Keanu Reeves does a great job of playing someone very distant and it is fun to see John Cleese (of Monty Python) in a serious role as a Nobel prize winning professor. On the other hand, the story is rather silly. Supposedly these advanced beings have had agents on earth for decades trying to figure us out and also have gained acess to the governments "mainframe" (do they still make those?) which is said to contain everything you might ever want to know about anything or anyone on earth. Given that, it does not make much sense that their entire perception is changed based on a few hours that the Keanu Reeves character spends with the pretty earth girl and her ill-behaved step-child. So, if you go, check your brain at the door and bring lots of popcorn.
Oh, and what is up with the title? The earth never does stand still in the movie.
Whew.
7 years ago
