Independence Day: Resurgence

I recently re-watched the first film and was surprised at how robust its shelf life is. Again, it is undeniably cheesy and jingoistic, but done suitably well, I can have a ball with any material. In "Independence Day: Resurgence", set and finally released 20 years after the events of the first film, the aliens get medieval on us with an even bigger mothership.

There's a lot of heroics here by many a character who do their equal part to stop this new alien menace, having already made a stuffed calzone of the Earth's crust comprising from London all the way to Singapore. There's also a refreshingly silly undertone which sets it apart from the grim and serious blockbusters of today, and with added Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch who return as the Levinsons, and "Star Trek" alumnus Brent Spiner as the eccentric Dr. Okun, Emmerich and his co-writers, including returning scribe Dean Devlin, certainly did not skimp out on the comic silliness.

Unfortunately, that is where the similarities end. The sins of sequelitis has been bestowed upon this sequel to his 1996 smash hit, and Emmerich is to blame, either for his laziness to phone it in out of frustration to fulfill the fans; or bucking in to studio demand to condense the film into a mere 2 hours. Sure, lots of things happen in the film, including stuff and cities going kablooey in high style, and high-tech aerial dogfights to give "Star Wars" a run for its money. Even Liam Hemsworth as the new hero Jake Morrison did not annoy me as much as I expected, though Hemsworth is still a far cry from Will Smith's "Elvis has left the building!" persona.

However, as slick as the modern CGI is, giving a sleeker look to the tech shown in the original film, it never quite gels together as a cohesive film - no momentum, no suspense, no catharsis when it does end. Bill Pullman's returning ex-President Thomas Whitmore is utterly wasted, as per his daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe, not doing her rep from "It Follows" any favours). It is not their fault; I feel that there is a lot of footage Emmerich was forced to excise by the Fox bigwigs to get more butts into cinema seats. Perhaps an extra half- hour of more cataclysmic destruction and character motives, but I may be asking for a bit too much at this point.

Things are very rushed indeed, with no payoff even when there's lots of characters doing their fair share to save the day. Goldblum and Hirsch, however, are still naturals, and they steal every scene they're in, and lift the movie up from near tediousness. Nevertheless, the special effects are fantastic, and are most certainly worth the price of admission alone.

It's kind of sad. This new one promotes global equality, with a female U.S. President (Sela Ward) celebrating world peace, and with everyone from across the globe giving it their all to kick E.T.'s ass. The action is fine and dandy without any of those annoying shaky-cam and quick-cut edits. And yet, the film suffers from awkward pacing, rushed dynamics, and especially a lack of cities exploding into fireballs. It even has sequel-teasing in the laziest manner possible in its final moments.

To quote Marvin the Martian, "Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be an Earth-Shattering Kaboom!"

TL;DR: It was actually boring. There was a story here that had potential but it was let down by terrible acting, bad dialog, no story or character development at all and, ultimately, no soul to this one.

3 points for above average special effects, -7 for just an awful movie. Netflix this one.

Edition watched: 3D IMAX

In 1996's Independence Day, Bill Pullman's speech hit you emotionally somewhere. Even if that emotion was disgust, you had a reaction. All of Will Smith's one liners made you cringe or laugh. No matter how much you may deny it publicly, Randy Quaid's end put a lump in your throat the first time you saw it. There was soul to that movie, even though it was an ensemble cast, characters were developed, the story progressed and there were heroes you cheered for and aliens you despised.

None of that was present in 2016's Independence Day. All the new actors were either bad or terrible. I didn't care if the aliens won or lost. Not only were the new actors bad but some of the dialog they were forced to work with was just terrible. Jessie T. Usher's character has a few key lines that are supposed to hearken back to those emotional one liners from Will Smith in 1996, such as: "Welcome to Earth!". Yet Usher delivered those lines in such a deadpan, soulless way that made me wonder if he thought he was supposed to be playing an emotionless android. Then you have my favorite emotionless android actor Brent Spiner, who is someone I know to be a quality actor, yet the dialog and scenes with him were so bad I had to wonder for a second if all his previous work was done by a twin.

I could go on, but the acting and dialog were just parts of the problem. There was no character development at all. They simply tried to cram too much into this movie. From the constant pandering to a Mainland Chinese audience (unnecessary scenes that should have been used for any kind of plot or character development) to Vivica A. Fox's minuscule screen time, there was too much shoved into this 120 min movie which ended up making it a big mess that went nowhere. In the end, I formed no attachment to any of the new characters and was detached from old characters that I once cheered for.

The most damning thing though is, despite all the explosions and this alien invasion, there was no excitement. I was bored. There was a girl in front of me texting and using FB messenger and I found myself involuntarily lifting my 3D glasses and reading her text chain and messenger thread till I caught myself and put my glasses back on. Her inane chatter about how boring this movie was, her cat, the guy she was sitting next to and so forth were more interesting to me than the movie on the huge IMAX screen was.

As a huge fan of alien invasion movies, I walked out feeling like this was such a huge opportunity wasted. If you told me the basic story of this move yesterday, I would've been ecstatic to see a trilogy. Now I hope the 3rd one dies in production and they put the money to a Battle Los Angeles 2.

This movie has an amazing cast. Boy did I miss seeing Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Sela Ward, and so on! It begun okay. The script could have been better Kinda lost some interest towards the end. If you like the genre, like myself, it is worth watching. It has its classical lines, funny moments, the excitement (not the best but there). Just don't expect a masterpiece.

I was looking very much forward to it, since I'm a fan of the original (nostalgia based). 15 minutes into the movie I just knew it was going to be bad.

Made by the same director that made the movie 2012, it has the same terrible drama and completely transparent storyline. I'm not even sure if there even is a storyline to this movie.

The worst part, aside from all the crying scenes based upon long distance relationships, unresolved father issues and what not, was in fact that the aliens are more primitive than us.

You would think that a race with such insane technology have evolved beyond petty and shortsighted impulse driven emotions. It's when you realize that the Queen of the aliens suddenly gets a personal vendetta against a yellow school bus while fighter planes are bombarding her, that the manuscript was written in half an hour in a coffee shop.

I really went into this with open eyes and was completely set for loving it, but no. The movie is just pure garbage. I'm sorry...

Twenty years ago, director Roland Emmerich put on screen an alien-invasion disaster feature with moments so iconic & jaw-dropping that viewers n critics alike were left dazzled by the sheer scale & size of its ambition. Independence Day was a watershed event for its genre and its influence on both disaster films & blockbuster filmmaking cannot be downplayed.

Independence Day was in every way a self-contained film. It never needed a sequel and its legacy was well-preserved for years to come. That was until Emmerich decided to put a dent on it, which is exactly what he does with Independence Day: Resurgence. A strong contender for the absolute worst film of 2016, this sequel is as needless & cringeworthy as movies can get.

Set 20 years after the events of the first film, Independence Day: Resurgence presents Earth to be a much more peaceful & united place than ever before. There's higher transparency in international cooperation and the defence system has benefited greatly by reverse-engineering the technology of the ruined alien spacecrafts. But when the aliens return with an even deadlier threat, mankind is put to test again.

Co-written & directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day: Resurgence is a facepalm-inducing garbage from start to finish. Everything that made its predecessor an instant classic is discarded in this sequel. What the writers have done with returning characters is downright embarrassing, while the new additions are even worse. There is neither any sense of logic in what transpires on screen nor any uniformity in its plot progression.

All of Roland Emmerich's trademarks make its way into the final print, be it the utter disregard for science or logic, suffocating levels of visual effects, corny characters, nonsensical set of events, and unprecedented demonstration of global catastrophe. The CGI excess is really overpowering in every sense of the word, and with all the stupidity that takes place over the course of its runtime, there is nothing redeemable about this sequel.

Coming to the performances, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner & Vivica A. Fox reprise their respective characters while the new additions include Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, Charlotte Gainsbourg & a few more unknowns, and the terrible work they put up on screen is only an extension of their awfully-written characters. In fact, the only one to really admire here is Will Smith, who decided to not return this time.

On an overall scale, Independence Day: Resurgence proves that Roland Emmerich is never so bad at filmmaking that he can't get any worse. Undeniably amongst the worst blockbusters to surface on silver screen, it is a horribly directed, shoddily scripted & poorly performed picture made even worse by its wooden characters, terrible dialogues & lame attempts at humour and sort of makes you wish that the aliens had won the last time. In a sentence, Independence Day: Resurgence is an insult to human intelligence.