Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour Che Guevara flick is a must-see, Keanu Reeve’s remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still is a must-flee.

Che
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Demián Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Catalina Sandino Moreno
****

There are a lot of other things you could be doing in the 262 minutes it takes to watch both parts of Che, Steven Soderbergh’s intimate epic about controversial revolutionary, Ernesto “Che” Guevara.  For example, you could prepare and serve a full-course French dinner, make a dent in Ayn Rand’s 1000-plus page Objectivist manifesto Atlas Shrugged, or hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail while rocking out to the entire output of Sly & the Family Stone.  But please don’t let Che‘s butt-numbing runtime scare you away.  It’s a remarkable movie and a career landmark for both Soderbergh and his star Benicio Del Toro, who completely disappears into a larger-than-life role that would defeat most actors.

Actually, the movie’s title is something of a misnomer as Che is less about the man than the movements he led.  Part 1 presents a detailed account of the Cuban Revolution, during which Guevara evolved from a simple medic/soldier to Fidel Castro’s top commandante.  The second part then jumps ahead roughly ten years ahead to chronicle his disastrous Bolivia campaign.  In both halves, Soderbergh forgoes the usual biopic exposition and drops the audience into the middle of the action, trusting us to keep up.  He has also cleverly designed the two parts as mirror images of each other, with the lessons Guevara learned during his rise in Cuba later contributing to his fall in Bolivia.

Viewers hoping for a more critical look at Guevara’s legacy may be disappointed by Che and, to be fair, they have a point.  By telescoping the narrative to deal with only these two events, the movie sidesteps having to deal with his divisive actions in post-revolution Cuba.  At the same time, Soderbergh and Del Toro are careful to not blindly heroicize Guevara, instead presenting him as an individual whose single-minded devotion to his cause is both his greatest strength and his greatest failing.  Che is also a terrific combat film, filled with harrowing sequences that capture the organized chaos of guerilla warfare.  So yes—this movie does demand four hours of your life.  But you’ll leave the theater richer for it.

Verdict: See It

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The Day the Earth Stood Still
Directed by Scott Derrickson
Starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Jaden Smith
**

Released in 1951 in the early years of the nuclear age, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still is a B-movie that was elevated to A-list status thanks to its timely social message and then-awesome special effects.  The story of a pacifist alien who pays mankind a visit to convince us not to destroy ourselves, Day is more talky than the kinds of sci-fi blockbusters we’re used to seeing at the multiplexes these days, but its low-key nature is a big part of its charm.  Appropriately, the best parts of Scott Derrickson’s big-budget remake are the quieter scenes where the human characters have to wrestle with how to react to discovering they aren’t alone in the universe.

The first 30 minutes of the new Day the Earth Stood Still are surprisingly gripping, particularly considering that it’s from the same director that made the laughable horror movie/courtroom drama The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the same screenwriter that penned the forgettable Robert Redford prison movie, The Last Castle. Jennifer Connelly plays the movie’s heroine Helen Benson, a brilliant astrobiologist who, while cooking dinner on a seemingly ordinary evening, is suddenly taken into custody by a phalanx of federal agents and escorted to a top-secret meeting of scientists and government officials.  It seems that some kind of unidentified flying object is about to slam into Central Park, completely obliterating Manhattan and much of the surrounding area.  Missiles are being dispatched to intercept the UFO and Helen and her fellow eggheads are put on a chopper to NYC to plan for the aftermath.

Once in the air though, they see that the flying object isn’t a meteor or a giant ship filled with ray-gun toting space squids.  Instead, it’s a giant ball of energy, which touches down gently in the park without displacing a single tree or blade of grass.  Out of this crackling globe steps a vaguely human figure…who is promptly shot by a trigger-happy soldier.  Rushed to a nearby medical facility, the alien recovers and acquires the face and voice of Keanu Reeves.  Keanu…excuse me, Klaatu then informs his captors—including trigger happy Defense Secretary Regina Jackson (played by Kathy Bates, clearly channeling Dick Cheney)—that he’s come to Earth to strongly encourage us to respect the environment…or else.  That’s right: the first alien we meet is literally a little green man.

It makes sense that the filmmakers swapped nuclear weapons out for the environment, which is certainly more a hot-button topic amongst this generation.  And if the movie actually had something to say about our impact on the planet, it may have reached out to an audience that has previously resisted such cinematic calls to action as An Inconvenient Truth and Wall*E.  Ultimately though, Day is just using the environmental angle as a way to achieve its real objective: blowing lots of shit up.  Once Helen helps Klaatu escape from the government, the movie turns into an extended chase sequence with random scenes of bloodless violence tossed into the mix.  It also accomplishes the difficult feat of making the characters dumber as the story continues; don’t be surprised to find yourself rooting for Klaatu to off Helen and her annoying stepson Jacob (played by Will Smith’s kid Jaden) along with the rest of mankind.  The movie’s emphasis on brawn over brain might not be so off-putting if the action sequences provided Iron Man-level whiz bang wow, but all of the big set-pieces are marred by confusing choreography and low-grade digital effects.  Unlike a lot of sci-fi fans, I wasn’t horrified by the announcement that The Day the Earth Stood Still was being remade as the original certainly has some dated qualities to it.  But I am horrified that so much money and talent was wasted on a movie that has so much contempt for its audience, it doesn’t even bother to give us an ending that makes sense.

Verdict: Skip It

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Also in Theaters

Wendy and Lucy
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Starring Michelle Williams
***1/2
Writer/director Kelly Reichardt made a big splash with the critically acclaimed film Old Joy a few years back, but his latest effort is a much stronger movie, with an emotional resonance that its predecessor lacked.  Michelle Williams plays Wendy a young drifter passing through Oregon with her dog Lucy by her side.  Stopping in a small town to pick up supplies, Wendy unwisely decides to shoplift food from the local supermarket, while Lucy waits outside.  She’s caught in the act and thrown in the slammer for the afternoon.  When she’s finally released and heads back to the scene of the crime to recover her dog, Lucy is nowhere to be found.  With her dwindling finances, Wendy can’t afford to stick around until Lucy is found, but she also knows that she can’t leave her only friend in the world behind.  Clocking in at a brief 80 minutes, Wendy and Lucy is the cinematic equivalent of a great short story.  Reichardt never overwhelms the viewer with exposition, keeping the narrative lean and focused.  And Williams continues to prove why she’s the only ex-Dawson’s Creek cast member who actually has a shot at winning an Oscar one day.
Verdict: See It

Nothing Like the Holidays
Directed by Alfredo De Villa
Starring Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, Vanessa Ferlito, John Leguizamo
**
If you like your holiday movies served with heaping spoonfuls of melodrama, it’s possible that you won’t experience heartburn while watching this overbaked, underseasoned Christmas story.  (Enough food metaphors for ya?)  Set in Chicago’s Puerto Rican-heavy Humboldt Park ‘hood, the movie pays a visit to the squabbling Rodriguez clan, who have gathered together to share good meals, good cheer and lots of painful family secrets, from infidelity to serious illness.  The cast, which includes Freddy Rodriguez, Vanessa Ferlito and Elizabeth Peña, does their best, but the script is strictly dinner theater material.
Verdict: Skip It