If the likes of Roger Ebert and the stoutly Barry Ronge can review movies, I don’t think it’s a far stretch for me to try my hand at it.

So, with brevity in mind, and a not-so-solid grasp of the English language, behold my movie review!

The Day the Earth Stood Still

What it should have been called: The Day The Brain Stood Still

The plot: We puny humans are horrible caretakers and as a result global warming is killing the Earth. Some alien elders are not pleased about this, and send a spaceship to Earth, bearing an emissary Klaatu and his large robot, GORT.

Klaatu has come to assess whether humanity can reverse the environmental damage we’ve done to the planet. His mind gets practically made up when he gets shot by the military and detained. Using cunning alien trickery he escapes and decides that the humans need to be destroyed to save the earth.

It is now up to astrobiologist Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), her obnoxious step-son Jacob (Jaden Smith), and altruism expert Professor Barnhardt (a cameo by John Cleese) to try dissuade him. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to guess the outcome.

The acting: The best actor would be the robot GORT – it did not speak. The acting is dismal – Reeves is wooden as alien Klaatu and Jennifer Connelly is squinty-eyed (that freaks me out). Jaden Smith, spawned from Will Smith’s seed, is equally lousy in this boring, poorly-paced mess.

The special effects: For a budget of  USD 80 million, one would be expecting a fantastic CGI fest (there obviously wasn’t much money invested in the plot!) but the visual effects were uneven, sparse, and lacklustre.

The rating: (2/5 stars)

What’s better: Cloverfield, War of the Worlds, Transformers

What’s worse: Hannah Montana, High School Musical

There you have it – a failed narrative, half-assed special effects, dubious acting. All the essentials of a movie what will quickly fade into obscurity.