THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) **1/2 In the 1950s people spent a lot of time worrying (bad) about nuclear weapons, and wondering if maybe they should get rid of them (good). For better and worse it's now so embedded in the collective subconscious that we might all blow up at any second that we pay so little attention to any of it that we allow arms dealers to put enough nukes in pre-existing silos to blow up the entire world hundreds of times, the sole purpose being that they get our tax money. This was before it came to that, and the philosophical dilemma posed is: Don't even worry about the Russians, what if we piss of the aliens?! The aliens being-it turns out-kinder, gentler, but entirely uninterested in putting up with our petty political bullshit. It's a good premise, a nicely done film, but…you know, for me, for in movies…I like the aliens to come out shooting and for us to shoot back and have more stuff blowing up in a funny manner, and general mayhem as terrified humans and aliens run around the streets, and ultimately the good guys (which has to be us, right) to win. A thinking man's B-movie about nukes and aliens, then.
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