The Day The Earth Stood Still: Green ad offends critics. Diddums

The powerful ecological theme of Fox's The Day The Earth Stood Still remake has upset those film critics who like to think that climate change has nothing to do with us, guv.

Here's Christopher Tookey in the Daily Mail: "Even more annoying are the film's smugly dictatorial assumptions. Once again, we are told that there is no alternative to some undefined 'Green' policy. If we don't obey their collective leadership unquestioningly and each buy ourselves a Toyota Prius - and I do mean right now - we're all going to die."

MovieCrypt.com: "If you want to see all the cool special effects in this remake, watch the trailer. If you want the extreme environmentalist agenda that goes with them, buy a ticket."

Tim Robey in the Daily Telegraph: "The cocktail of lazy CGI and po-faced, sub-Al-Gore environment lecture leaves you light-headed with tedium."

Channel 4 Film: "The combination of greenwash and pansy-waisted Ivy League liberalism reaches retching point about midway through the film ... "

Pass the sickbag, Malice. These and other critics would have ridiculed Robert Wise's original film back in 1951 for its atomic warfare concerns: quite why so many journalists tend to blinkered stupidity I'm not sure: perhaps someone out there, an Earthling Klaatu perhaps, could explain it.

It should be remembered that Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch who has belatedly become sympathetic to the Green movement, pushing his global empire to become carbon neutral in the foreseeable future. I'm sure he welcomed this updating of the movie. Klaatu's message to the world, that Earth doesn't need mankind but mankind needs Earth, is a lift of part of James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis which views the planet as a single organism.

The Day The Earth Stood Still could turn out to be the most expensive ad for the Greens ever. Most excellent.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

The line is not in the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still - and just as well, it would have disrupted the integrity of this very good remake.