The original Day the Earth Stood Still offered a small philosophy of the cosmos; so did this one, well at least part of it. The film presents the idea that the universe doesn't "waste" anything, but converts matter/reality. The idea of wasting is in line with the film's green message. While this is all well and good, I would have liked to have more substance to what humanity is doing that is so wrong. You see in the film, the entire human race is going to be destroyed so that the planet may be saved. The human race is portrayed as destroying the Earth, as well as destroying itself throw war and an inability to reason. The idea of "conversion" is introduced by Reeves' character to explain why death is not a complete end of consciousness. However, this can move on to some good... some strange metaphysical ends, i.e. reincarnation, some creepy transcendental dualism, etc. But at least the film never carried it that far. Actually, I am kind of glad that it introduced some level of philosophical thought. I could go on longer talking about this, but I don't want to give too much away for those who haven't seen it.
Another question I have is regarding its political message. The film definitely portrays a view of man as unreasonable, wasteful, violent, etc. The idea is that man needs to change before it's too late. I'm not arguing with that, and I don't think anyone else would. But my question is whether or not the film intentionally uses the the theme of change to make an allusion to current political events. I'm really not sure. But I would certainly encourage viewers to keep that in mind when watching the film. Personally, I really hope that it was just a coincidence and I am thinking too much about it. But I suppose that's another conversation.
Overall, I really enjoyed the film, but I felt that the story was lacking a bit of substance that the original clearly had. Still, it's definitely worth a watch. I would see it again at the theatre or rent it, but I'm not sure that I would buy it.
