We join Keanu "The Matrix" Reeves high up a mountain in the 1950s where suddenly, out of the blue, in the midst of a snowstorm a strange orb catches his attention.

In the present day, the US government starts to panic. Their satellites show what they believed initially to be a comet changing course and heading straight for the Earth. They gather all the top minds in their fields including our heroine, to a top secret base near New York.

There is no time to evacuate, so they take whatever manouvres they can make to study the object which slows and lands in Central Park. When a strange creature emerges from the orb, the millitary decide to shoot it.

I could go on and tell you more, but I don't want to spoil the storyline for anyone who does want to see the film. It got quite bad ratings by all the main critics and anyone expecting an action packed sci-fi warfest will be disappointed.

However, for me the film was interesting and clearly had an environmental and perhaps even a theistic message to bring. Keanu seems to be typecast at this point into playing this kind of character since his role was definitely Neo-esque to say the least. You expected him to take off at any point or do some bullet-dodging!

The special effects and the actors were clearly what the budget on this film was spent on, bringing up to date the 1953 classic of the same name. This was possibly why the plot was so shallow since the director was probably limited as to what he or she could do without disappointing fans of the original.

Like I said, though, I didn't hate the film but I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy it either.

see also:
Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, X Men: First Class, Avatar, Star Trek

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photo © 20th Century Fox.