Movie Review: Independence Day: Resurgence

TODAY WE CELEBRATE FORGETTING THIS MOVIE

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016): Two decades after the first Independence Day invasion, Earth is faced with a new extra-Solar threat. But will mankind's new space defenses be enough?

GUYS. GUYS. LOOK AT ALL THE INTRIGUE IN THAT IMDB DESCRIPTION. SO MUCH INTRIGUE RIGHT? Look I'll make it easy for y'all: this movie SUCKS. It is actually terrible, and what's sad is I actually had hope that this movie would be somewhat ok. After all while the first one is EXTREMELY dated now, there are still some great moments in that film. I mean that final battle sequence from start to finish is awesome. I still get an adrenaline rush watching it today, and I still get a little emotional when the man who had been mocked most of the film ultimately is the one who saves the day. Not to mention dat speech, which definitely makes a good argument for best speech in the history of cinema. Buuuuuuuuuuuut the original this film is not.

So let's talk about the good first. Let's see what I can find.....um......oh! Bill Pullman was good reprising his role as President Whitmore. He had some of the best lines of the film and his character definitely had the best moment of the film. Seeing Jeff Goldblum not care about anything is awesome. He is clearly only in this film for the money, and he had a blast with that fact. That's definitely not something that should be awesome, but in this case it is because it's Jeff freaking Goldblum. Aaaaaaaand the comedic relief from Nicolas Wright (comedic relief in Emmerich's surprisingly good White House Down as well) was much needed and excellent, and the interactions between Goldblum and Judd Hirsch were just as funny as they were in the first film. Can we PLEASE get a film where it's just the two of them being themselves for 2 hours? Because that would be hilarious. Finally, I must give the film props for having an emotional death scene with two men in love with each other. I'm glad that that is becoming increasingly ok that it's popping up in a big budget summer blockbuster, but I will say it kind of came out of left field so from a relationship standpoint that romance wasn't earned at all. Whiiiiiiiiiich pretty much sums up the rest of the film.

Soooooooooo the rest of the film. First off, the effects. Holy crap the effects were TERRIBLE. With the exception of the mother alien the effects for this film were absolutely awful. Like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 levels of awful. For example in the picture above, and at several other moments you knew there was not a single organic thing on screen. It was all CGI. And when that happens for me it least it really breaks immersion. From a story standpoint this film is basically the first one done over again, which I'd be ok with if I thought the first film had a good overall story. It does not, and when the moments of the first one that were good (like the President's speech) are replicated here it just doesn't have the same effect. I think one of the big things that this film failed to do that the first one did do was give us a sense of scale. Remember that scene in the first one where the world uses Morse code to communicate a battle plan? Well nothing like that happens here. In fact during the "big speech" of this film we get shots from around the world, but this time around everyone is just sitting around their radios. Hanging out. All the action takes place in one place this time around, and that really hurts the film. Finally, the rest of the acting in this film leaves a LOT to be desired. Liam Hemsworth is not his brother, and Jessie T. Usher left something to be desired. I was definitely disappointed in the young talent of this film, the biggest of which being Maika Monroe. No Maika no! The star of It Follows (anyone who follows this blog knows how much I loved It Follows from last year) was very lackluster I felt as Patricia Whitmore. She just couldn't rise above the mantra of being "the girl" until the end of the final action sequence, and by then the film had long since lost me. I know you can do better!

Ultimately, director Roland Emmerich drops a huge dud here with ID4 2. From bad visuals to lackluster writing to terrible editing OH THE FREAKING EDITING. Can I just say the editing of this film is some of the worst editing I've ever seen? Adam Wolfe has done good work in the past, but that good work definitely does not transfer to here, as this film strived to have the fastest cuts imaginable, resulting in me often times having NO idea where anything was in relation to anything else. I've seen this new style start to creep up in films as an alternative to shaky cam, but to me it's JUST AS BAD as that. STOP IT HOLLYWOOD. STOP HAVING QUICK CUTS IN YOUR ACTION SEQUENCES. THE AUDIENCE WANTS TO BE ABLE TO ACTUALLY SEE WHAT'S GOING ON. Sorry for the rant there but come on guys! You should be able to create enough tension in these action sequences with, you know, the action that's happening you don't need to add shaky cam or quick cuts! LAWD. Ok where was I? Right. This movie sucks. While there are a few good moments in the 129 minute film, the majority of this film is, well, garbage. This will likely find itself on my worst films of 2016 list.

The Critique: Bad visuals, editing, storytelling, and well, pretty much everything else make Independence Day: Resurgence one of the worst films of 2016 to this point.

The Recommendation: Ah. You know what I'm going to say. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. I know you want to watch it out of curiosity but wait until it's on Redbox or Netflix or something!

Rewatchability: Moderately Low

The Verdict: 2/10 Garbage.



Image Credit
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