If we took one message away from this summer's Wall-E, it is that our way of life may very well be headed in a dangerous direction. If The Happening left us with any lasting impression, it is that the road we keep walking down does not merely put us in danger, but warrants our destruction. And this winter in The Day the Earth Stood Still, the human race once again stands trial for the less-than-environmentally-conscious and -humanitarian lives we lead.

A less action-packed Independence Day/War of the Worlds meets a more complex, dramatic version of Meet Dave, the 2008 remake of Robert Wise's 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still once again tackles the possibility of apocalypse due to alien invasion. When an unknown globe-like object lands in Central Park, followed by the appearance of similar globes around the earth, the world begins to panic. Possibly because of the many historical apocalypse stories that have ended with the superiority of human might, the spheres, the human clone-like alien who arrives with them, and his gigantic robot "protector" are all countered with the full force of military might. But where other apocalyptic scenarios have been ended either by human might or alien inferiority, as the alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) says, this time, "a decision has been made" and there's pretty much nothing we can do about it.

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