The Day the Earth Stood Still 2008

 Released Year: 2008

Directed by Scott Derrickson

Casted by:

Keanu Reeves as Klaatu

Jennifer Connelly as Helen Benson

Jaden Smith as Jacob Benson

John Cleese as Professor Karl Barnhardt

Jon Hamm as Dr. Michael Granier

Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson

 Story: 

In 1928, a solitary mountaineer encounters a glowing sphere. He loses consciousness and when he wakes, the sphere has gone and there is a scar on his hand where a sample of his DNA has been taken.

In the present day, a rapidly moving object is detected beyond Jupiter's orbit and forecast to impact Manhattan. The United States government hastily assembles a group of scientists, including Dr. Helen Benson, to formulate a survival plan. The object is measured to be moving at 30,000 kilometers per second - enough to destroy nearly all life on Earth - but as it nears the planet, the object slows down just before impact and is revealed to be a large spherical spaceship, which lands gently in Central Park. The sphere is quickly surrounded by police and a heavily armed, hostile, and rather chaotic US military force.

An alien emerges and Helen moves forward to greet it, but amidst the confusion, a soldier shoots the alien. A gigantic robot then appears that temporarily disables everything in the vicinity. The alien voices the command "Klaatu barada nikto" to shut down the robot's defensive response.

A military surgeon discovers that the alien body is actually a bioengineered space suit, composed of placenta-like material covering a human-like being. The being quickly ages into Klaatu, who looks like the mountaineer from the opening scene of the film. Klaatu informs Secretary of Defense Regina Jackson that he is a representative of a group of alien civilizations, sent to talk to the leaders of Earth at a United Nations conference in the city. Jackson instead orders that Klaatu be sent to a secure location for interrogation. Klaatu manages to escape and Helen and her stepson Jacob give him a ride out of the area. The trio are pursued and harassed by the authorities for the rest of the film.

The presence of the sphere, and others like it around the world, causes a widespread panic. The military launch a drone attack on the sphere, but are thwarted by the robot. They cautiously enclose the robot and transport it to Virginia.

Klaatu meets with another alien, Mr. Wu, who has lived on Earth for 70 years. Wu tells Klaatu that he has found the human race to be destructive and unwilling to change, which matches Klaatu's experience. Klaatu decides that the planet, with its rare ability to sustain complex life, must be cleansed of humans to ensure that it can survive. Klaatu orders smaller spheres to collect specimens of animal species, to preserve them off the planet. Helen quizzes Klaatu about his statement that he has come to save the Earth and discovers that he means to save the Earth from destruction by humankind.

Meanwhile, the robot, named "GORT" by the military, is being examined in an underground facility. The robot transforms into a swarm of winged, insect-like, nano-machines that self-replicate as they consume everything in their path. The swarm starts to erase all trace of the human race.

Hoping to persuade Klaatu to change his mind about humanity, Helen takes him to the home of Nobel Prize-winning Professor Barnhardt. They discuss how Klaatu's own race went through a drastic evolution to survive their own star's demise. Klaatu is impressed by the beauty of the music by Bach playing in the background. Klaatu finally realizes that he has misjudged humanity when he sees Helen comforting Jacob at his father's grave. They head for the sphere in Central Park to try to stop the swarm.

Klaatu warns that even if he manages to stop the swarm, there will be a price to the human way of life. The swarm arrives and Jacob and Helen become infected by the nano-machines. Helen tells Klaatu to save Jacob and Klaatu draws the nano machines into his body, reviving Jacob. Klaatu then walks through the swarm to the sphere, touching it moments before his body is consumed. The sphere deactivates the swarm, saving humanity, but at the expense of electrical activity on Earth which is apparently all shut down. The giant sphere leaves the Earth.

 L² Scored: 4.5/10

L² Comment: 

This is not the first time i watched this remake film of 1951 same name movie, but still it managed to bored me out and makes me almost fell asleep again... I did not watch the 1951 movie and of course not the fiction "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates; so i'm not in the place to comment how much it follows the original, all i know is, i need to drank coffee to finish this movie.

Technical wise definitely better than the previous movie i suppose, Reeves seems like a piece of wood to me, totally expressionless~ yawn. Connelly in the meanwhile not really outstanding too if compare to little Jaden Smith :) But overall the movie is very so so, guess most probably I won't watch it for the third time anymore...

Saw 5

Released Year: 2008
Directed by David Hackl

Casted by:
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw / John Costas Mandylor
Costas Mandylor as Mark Hoffman
Scott Patterson as Agent Strahm
Betsy Russell as Jill
Julie Benz as Brit
Meagan Good as Luba
Mark Rolston as Dan Erickson
Story:

Seth Baxter, a convicted murderer, awakens chained to a table beneath a pendulum blade. In order to release himself, he must crush his hands by putting them into two presses and pushing the buttons inside. He does as the video tells him, but the pendulum still swings down and violently cuts him in half. Just before he dies, he sees an eye watching him through a hole in the wall.

In a scene from the end of Saw IV, Agent Peter Strahm kills Jeff Denlon in self-defense. After being sealed in the sickroom, he escapes through a hidden passage, where he is captured by a figure wearing a pig mask. He awakens with his head trapped in a glass box slowly being filled with water; he survives by performing a tracheotomy on himself using a pen to keep him breathing. Outside the meatpacking plant, Detective Hoffman returns Corbett Denlon, Jeff's daughter, to the police. He claims they are the only two survivors, only to be shocked to see Strahm carried out alive as well.

In his will, John Kramer leaves Jill Tuck a box and a videotape, which informs her that the items in the box are of "grave importance". She opens the box using a key around her neck, then leaves without disclosing its contents. Meanwhile, a memorial service is held for the five detectives killed in action; during the memorial, Hoffman is promoted to detective lieutenant by the chief of police. While taking Strahm's phone, he is informed that Strahm's partner, Lindsey Perez, died from her shrapnel wounds. He meets Strahm at the hospital, where Strahm tells him that Perez's last words were "Detective Hoffman." Strahm is taken off of duty by his boss, Dan Erickson, and begins researching past Jigsaw victims, now obsessed with piecing together Hoffman's involvement. Through his research, he learns that Hoffman killed Seth Baxter with the pendulum trap after Seth killed Hoffman's sister, and that John used this information to blackmail Hoffman into working with him. The two worked together to set up most of John's tests, most notably the razor-wire maze and the nerve gas house. Additionally, Hoffman planted the penlight that framed Lawrence Gordon and provided the files for the victims of the gas house. At the end of his quest, Strahm discovers that everyone was meant to die in the meatpacking plant except for Hoffman, who was to be the hero who closed the case.

Meanwhile, five more victims awaken in an underground trap with collars locked around their necks connecting them to mounted razor blades. The keys to their collars are in glass boxes across the room, but moving for them will set off a one-minute timer. All but Ashley retrieve their keys, and she is decapitated when her collar retracts. In the second room, keys must be found in overhead jars in order to unlock three chambers that will protect them from bombs. Charles attacks Mallick and takes his key, but is struck by Luba and is killed when the bombs explode. In the third room, five cables must be connected to a full bathtub to unlock five locks on the door, though none are long enough to reach. Luba attacks Mallick to use his body to close the circuits, but Brit stabs her in the neck and they use Luba's body instead. In the final room, the door must be opened by filling a beaker, positioned in a machine fitted with circular saws, with ten pints of blood. They notice that there are five armholes and realize that all five victims were to work together to survive in every game: In the first test, any of the five keys in the room would have unlocked all the collars; the three chambers in the second test could have easily fit two people; the five victims could have closed the circuit in the third test without receiving a lethal amount of electricity and in the final test the five victims could have provided enough blood to fill the ten pints without experiencing the degree of injury experienced if there were only two. They also realize that all five of them were connected to a building fire that killed eight people. With no other choices, they begin sawing their arms to provide the ten pints.

Hoffman plants Strahm's phone, which is being tracked by Erickson, and Erickson's personnel file in the fifth room, which is found by Erickson when he arrives soon after. He also finds Brit, who managed to crawl out of the fourth room when Mallick passed out from blood loss, and calls for medical assistance, then places an all-points bulletin for Strahm's arrest, as he now believes Strahm to be Jigsaw's second accomplice. Meanwhile, Strahm follows Hoffman to the renovated nerve gas house and makes his way to a small underground room, which contains a clear box filled with broken glass. Hoffman's tape recorder informs Strahm that he must trust him and enter the box, but Strahm stops the tape short and ambushes Hoffman when he arrives, ultimately sealing Hoffman in the box and causing the room to seal itself. Hoffman indicates the tape, which tells Strahm that if he chooses not to, he will "simply vanish" and Hoffman's legacy will become his own. The glass box is lowered safely into the floor as the walls close in on Strahm and crush him to death while he attempts to escape through the ceiling grid.

L² Scored: 7.5/10

L² Comment:

I would really wanna praise the intelligence of the script writer to wrap up the storyline of the previous movie with this one. And this creates a kinda spooky feeling which you might feel towards Jigsaw.

This time, the best part will be putting 5 person in several test. They outcasted each other but in the end only realize that they are wrong and they need 5 person to work together to get them alive. FUCK!!! I will fucking kill myself first if i know i was caught in the Saw game :P