Let's just get this out of the way now. There is a LOT that is terrible about this movie. It's mostly awful. It's mostly the stuff of showing you your childhood through shit-covered lenses. When writers and directors are asked to produce a sequel to their own films that are two decades old-- something happens in the process and it smells a lot like stale, moldy shit.
Yet-- I say, YET-- there is a LOT that is f**king awesome about this movie.
Independence Day was my Star Wars when I was a kid. I was eight years old when it came out and my parents took me to see it at the local dollar theater. I had never loved a movie as much as I did that one. I asked for posters, action figures, alien fighter jets, Jeff Goldblum movies, old re-runs of Taxi, and a giant alien blaster gun. I watched the movie so often I literally wore out my VHS copy that I had to save up to buy another one. I can quote damn near the entire movie from start to finish. It's where I learned "up yours". It's where Will Smith transitioned from sitcom star to movie star. It's where Randy Quaid was still someone who was allowed on screen. And it's where Bill Pullman gave the greatest inspirational speech in MOVIE HISTORY. (Yeah-- I'm going there. There is no better speech. Anywhere. Ever.) And due to the fact that it had a modest budget for a large blockbuster film, a lot more practical effects were utilized than CGI which allows the movie to [mostly] hold up to today's standards. It's a damn near perfect sci-fi film... okay, it's not perfect, but it's one of the most fun. Independence Day: Resurgence is not this. It's almost all the opposite of this. But, there is still some good about the film that doesn't totally Jurassic World your entire childhood.
The Return: So, let's see, we've got a bunch of people in this cast. Most of them are legitimately unnecessary, but here we go. So, after the attacks of 1996, the world has been united and nearly all intercontinental war has been eliminated. We have also harnessed the power and technology of the aliens and beefed up our world with giant moon weapons and floating cars. There is a female President (Sela Ward) who is preparing for the 20 year anniversary of the country's greatest battle. Up on the moon is Jake (Liam Hemsworth-- I'm going to save my disdain for this man for another paragraph) who is some sort of soldier on the moon with his buddy Charlie, some little wiener kid soldier who cracks lame not-even-fit-for-the-90s jokes. Jake is dating Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe-- because original Patricia from 1996 was Mae Whitman-- best known as Ann from Arrested Development-- but it seems Egg was deemed not attractive enough to fulfill this role. Dicks.), the daughter of former President, and resident crazy bearded guy with a limp, Whitmore (Bill Pullman). Jake has beef with Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher, also not the original cast Dylan) who is Will Smith's kid all grown up. He's a war hero-- because Will Smith is dead. And during training Jake almost accidentally, recklessly killed him. Back on Earth-- there's THE MAN David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) trying to figure out some sort of alien signal with some stereotypical African warlord, and being followed by some frumpy American John Oliver-looking dude that literally has NO BUSINESS being in this film. My boy William Fichtner is some general or something. Finally, as far as returning characters, we have David's father, Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch) to return for all the fun. Oh, and that crazy doctor with the weird hair. Oh, and Will Smith's stripper turned respected doctor in only 20 years wife.
Holy shit. I haven't even gotten to the plot yet. Making it quick-- the aliens come back pissed as all hell in a spaceship the size of the entire Atlantic Ocean. They reign down Hell in all its forms and legitimately mess up Earth on a scale considerably bigger than last time. There. That wasn't so bad. So, let's start with what's bad and what's good about this sequel.
The Bad: Well, friends, there is a lot that is bad about this movie. I'd say that it's mostly bad. And this is due to the tiny little element of all the actors cast. This is some atrocious acting. There must be some sort of weird millennial divide of who young people wanted to see and respected on screen in the 90s compared to now. Will Smith was young. Goldblum was young (ish). They had humor. They had charisma. They had rapport. They had character. They're damn good actors. Every one of the new actors cast are hollow and wooden and boring and terrible. Little Will Smith is awkward and trying as hard as he can to replicate that magic that Will Smith brought to the screen only to look like a cheap impression (you know, like when someone tries to do a Schwarzenegger impression but they only just, like, growl and say 'chopper'). The new President's daughter is boring. She's there to look pretty, have big eyes, and cry a lot. Oh, and randomly get tough out of nowhere-- awkwardly. Hey, guys, Mae Whitman-- Egg-- is still acting. And she's a good one! But, Liam Hemsworth... my God do I hate him. I thought I hated him as whiny, brooding Gale in The Hunger Games... I did not know my level of hatred could flow get this deep. He's not even just vanilla yogurt anymore. He's three year old vanilla yogurt that's been left in the back corner of the fridge without the top on. He knows one facial expression- douchebag.
Even a lot of the returning actors aren't that great. I mean, Goldblum can hold his own, but Pullman kinda hams it up a little too hard. But even as bad as the acting is in this film, it's nothing compared to every single line of dialogue written and then subsequently uttered. I'm talking bad. This is like George Lucas bad. I'd say worse. It's nothing but plot explanation and trying to re-use old jokes from the first film. Everything everyone says is to further the plot, but not like in an organic way. It's used in a "man... I can't believe you've been in a coma for 7800 days" kinda way (actual line spoken in the movie). It's there to explain the plot and the characters to you instead of just watching the movie and developing characters in front of us. I don't think you understand how bad it sounds. If there were a part when Lame Hemsworth (haha see what I did there. I'm clever) and Not Mae Whitman were talking and one said "Hey, remember when we started dating like two and a half years ago on a Tuesday in August..." it would fit right in! Then-- THEN-- they use the same jokes from the first movie OVER AGAIN. We hear the entire speech from Pullman like three times in the movie. Will Smith's kid-- when taking out an alien-- talks about a "close encounter"! Are you kidding me??? You can't take portions of great lines from the original and write them shittier and give them to worse actors. It's nails on a chalkboard. It's a shovel scraping the sidewalk. It's someone trying to shred a rusty spoon with a cheese grater. This is one of the only times in the last decade or so I've longed for Randy Quaid.
Finally, there are a LOT of obvious plot holes and unnecessary characters. There's the warlord who looks like he's found the secret to destroying the aliens, but the information he provides isn't used by anyone. There's some weird white trash family in a car that I guess is supposed to fill the void of Randy Quaid-- it doesn't-- it's weird and makes no sense. There's a boat full of Irish pirates (I'm not making this up) who apparently have a computer that can tell how far into the Earth the aliens are drilling and how many minutes before they reach Earth's core-- and this, of course, is after all of the satellites lining the Earth are destroyed. Several instances of "accidental" run-ins lead to good things. And just the amount of characters that aren't needed is astonishing. The frumy John Oliver pencil pushing looking dude is the worst. He's also there for some sort of comedic relief, but garners neither laughs nor any semblance of relief. He contributes zero to them movie.
So... the majority of the film sucking butt is largely due to the casting and the horrendous dialogue that apparently nobody thought twice about taking a red pen to. Now...
The Good: The rest of it is not just good, it's great. The plot of the movie is fantastic. Obviously, sequels need to be bigger in scope and size, but this one raises the bar to an unprecedented level. The obvious choice for a sequel is to have the aliens come back in retaliation, but the way they come back and F**K EVERYTHING UP is amazing to watch. The amount of destruction is indescribable. The ideas on how to stop the aliens is great. The way that idea is shit on by the aliens immediately is fantastic. The aliens themselves kicking our asses and the resolve of the human race to never give up, never surrender is in perfect Independence Day form. Had this same script been written two, three years after the original and Will Smith wasn't killed off over a salary dispute, it might've actually been the perfect sequel to an amazing movie. Time has failed us in the writing department and the acting department... but it has helped in the visual department. The action and destruction and devastation of the alien attacks and traps and plans and everything is a sight to see. For all of our plans, they have a bigger and badder counter-plan. Like, this shit should be un-winnable. It's so much fun to watch-- and then they speak and the only response is to recoil in disgust in your seat. However, when the action and effects are the highlight of your film, characters and development have severely failed.
So, consensus? It's mostly terrible. But it's a lot of awesome. If there was a way that the sound could go out in your theater and you didn't have to hear a single character speak-- it might actually be one of the best movies of the year. Obviously, if you are a fan of the first film, I'm going to tell you to see this one because there are elements that are just as good if not better than the first. But, every human character (minus the Levinsons-- God I love Goldblum) is a waste of film and every line spoken is a hate crime against paper. The first 25 minutes of the film are absolutely unbearable, so that's the first hurdle. But, then, after that is when the action picks up and as long as nobody is talking-- you're gonna have a good time.
C-
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