The Day the Earth Stopped starts as hundreds of huge robots descend from space & land on Earth in hundreds of different locations, the authorities refer to them as 'Megaliths'. Then in Los Angeles a much smaller spacecraft lands & two naked aliens (Sinead MacCafferty & Bug Hall (!?!)) start wandering around, local army dudes including Private Josh Myron (director C. Thomas Howell) set out to capture the aliens which they do. After a while the aliens begin to talk & the woman nicknamed Sky says that the Megaliths have been sent by a distant alien race to wipe out humanity before it becomes a threat or something like that & that in order to stop them she must be shown the nature of humanity & why it must be saved. The evil authorities want to torture & drug Sky which doesn't go down well so Myron breaks her out & takes it upon himself to convince her that humanity is worth saving, well I feel a lot safer already...
Directed by & starring C. Thmas Howell the IMDb would have you believe The Day the Earth Stopped was a homage to the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) but in actuality it's one of The Aslum's terrible 'Mockbuster' rip-offs, this time it's the big budget remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) with Keanu Reeves & in fact Twentieth Century Fox got their lawyers onto The Asylum but unfortunately they couldn't stop this terrible film from being released which is a shame as it would have saved me 90 odd wasted minutes. The Day the Earth Stopped is an absolutely awful film on every level, the script is terrible with awful character's & dialogue & a story that just makes no sense. If these aliens see us as so much of a threat why not just destroy us, why give us a chance at all? It's never really explained who the model like alien woman is or what power she has & that bloke alien basically does nothing the entire film & I struggle to see hwy he's even there. At 90 odd minutes it drags & is really boring with a predictable & lacklustre plot that has no momentum or excitement. Are we to believe when aliens land & threaten the very existence of all humanity the people trying to solve the problem will amount to about half a dozen soldiers & a guy in a suit? Then there's the supposed moral message about behind all the bad things in the world there's lots of good & we should never forget our humanity which is as subtle as a baseball bat round the head & very heavy-handed in a preaching moralistic sort of way that patronizes & induces tedium in equal measure. This whole film is a mess, it's boring, poorly thought out, moralising in the worse possible way & just plain rotten to sit through.
If the story wasn't bad enough there's not even any fun to be had here, there is absolutely zero blood or gore & even when Sky gets shot while wearing a white top not one drop of blood is seen & the part when that woman gives birth in the back of Myron's car is ridiculous as it's got hair, totally clean & that bloke must have been a doctor since the umbilical cord was cut as well, the makers didn't even attempt to make the baby look like a new born child. There's the scene where someone remarks that all the cars have stopped working yet seconds later a car is clearly seen driving past in the background & then there's the usual awful CGI computer effects the least said about the better. Also while trying to save the world from complete destruction by gigantic alien robots the best we have have to work in what looks like an abandoned warehouse with about two computers & one table at their disposal. There are no action scenes, all the aliens look human & apart from a bit of nudity at the start this is PG rated stuff all the way.
With the usual low budget of probably about $250,000 this looks awful with rotten CGI effects & terrible production values, the whole thing basically relies on fooling people into thinking they are going to watch the big budget version that came out at the same time & it's just wrong. Filmed in California. The acting is awful & are we really supposed to believe that model like woman is an alien who the very existence of humanity depends? She just looks so wrong for the part it's untrue.
The Day the Earth Stopped is a terrible rip-off 'Mockbuster' from The Asylum, a company who quite simply make the worst films around & try to con people into buying or renting them by associating them with bigger better films out at the time. Have they actually made a good film? Watch the original The Day the Earth Stood Still or the remake instead as this is not worth your time.
Directed by & starring C. Thmas Howell the IMDb would have you believe The Day the Earth Stopped was a homage to the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) but in actuality it's one of The Aslum's terrible 'Mockbuster' rip-offs, this time it's the big budget remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) with Keanu Reeves & in fact Twentieth Century Fox got their lawyers onto The Asylum but unfortunately they couldn't stop this terrible film from being released which is a shame as it would have saved me 90 odd wasted minutes. The Day the Earth Stopped is an absolutely awful film on every level, the script is terrible with awful character's & dialogue & a story that just makes no sense. If these aliens see us as so much of a threat why not just destroy us, why give us a chance at all? It's never really explained who the model like alien woman is or what power she has & that bloke alien basically does nothing the entire film & I struggle to see hwy he's even there. At 90 odd minutes it drags & is really boring with a predictable & lacklustre plot that has no momentum or excitement. Are we to believe when aliens land & threaten the very existence of all humanity the people trying to solve the problem will amount to about half a dozen soldiers & a guy in a suit? Then there's the supposed moral message about behind all the bad things in the world there's lots of good & we should never forget our humanity which is as subtle as a baseball bat round the head & very heavy-handed in a preaching moralistic sort of way that patronizes & induces tedium in equal measure. This whole film is a mess, it's boring, poorly thought out, moralising in the worse possible way & just plain rotten to sit through.
If the story wasn't bad enough there's not even any fun to be had here, there is absolutely zero blood or gore & even when Sky gets shot while wearing a white top not one drop of blood is seen & the part when that woman gives birth in the back of Myron's car is ridiculous as it's got hair, totally clean & that bloke must have been a doctor since the umbilical cord was cut as well, the makers didn't even attempt to make the baby look like a new born child. There's the scene where someone remarks that all the cars have stopped working yet seconds later a car is clearly seen driving past in the background & then there's the usual awful CGI computer effects the least said about the better. Also while trying to save the world from complete destruction by gigantic alien robots the best we have have to work in what looks like an abandoned warehouse with about two computers & one table at their disposal. There are no action scenes, all the aliens look human & apart from a bit of nudity at the start this is PG rated stuff all the way.
With the usual low budget of probably about $250,000 this looks awful with rotten CGI effects & terrible production values, the whole thing basically relies on fooling people into thinking they are going to watch the big budget version that came out at the same time & it's just wrong. Filmed in California. The acting is awful & are we really supposed to believe that model like woman is an alien who the very existence of humanity depends? She just looks so wrong for the part it's untrue.
The Day the Earth Stopped is a terrible rip-off 'Mockbuster' from The Asylum, a company who quite simply make the worst films around & try to con people into buying or renting them by associating them with bigger better films out at the time. Have they actually made a good film? Watch the original The Day the Earth Stood Still or the remake instead as this is not worth your time.