By Geno McGahee
In 1996, INDEPENDENCE DAY was released and made about 900 million dollars at the box office. It was loaded with CGI and wasn’t very good, but it was fun. That was the point. It wasn’t supposed to be a good movie. It was supposed to be a rollercoaster ride and it fit the bill. So, twenty years later, we get an unlikely sequel: “INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE.” It is loaded with more CGI than the first and is missing the fun factor that made the original so popular.
President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is now just living out his life but he is haunted by the idea of the evil aliens returning to the planet. His daughter, Patricia (Maika Monroe), is now working with the new President and is engaged to a bad boy pilot, Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth). The world has changed since the aliens were defeated in 1996. We have incorporated their advanced technology into our everyday life, leading to a base on the moon and new dimensions for flight in general. The technology has come in very handy for military purposes and a space defense has been set up to stop and future alien attacks.
Will Smith was killed off in this one. He was doing some experimental flight and it killed him. He was probably too expensive or too hard to work with. One of those. In his place, his son, Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), is now a decorated pilot and the spokesman for humanity to a great degree. Dylan and Jake have bad blood since Jake did some showboating that almost caught Dylan his life, but Patricia is helping them mend fences.
Jeff Goldblum is back as David Levinson, the scientist that figured out the attack in 96. He is keeping a close eye out and travels to the only UFO that landed and discovered that the lights went back on and that something is certainly up. The aliens in captivity at Area 51 are acting strangely and when David enters the landed ship, he discovers that there is an attack coming. His father, Julius (Judd Hirsch) is now doing a book tour and works as the comic relief in this film, but it doesn’t work at all. As much as I like Hirsch, this character wasn’t written very well and becomes annoying at times. Hollywood tries to go against the norm by having children and elderly people as heroes or as unlikely survivors and we see that here as Julius is in an impossible situation as this tidal wave comes in and launches him in his boat as containers topple next to him.
The aliens attack and they are flying an enormous ship and the attack is back on. There are some incredible visuals. They fly through China and the entire city gets torn up as the buildings and vehicles float up because of the ship’s gravitational pull. David teams up with Jake, Dylan, Dikembe (Deobia Oparei) and Floyd (Nicolas Wright) to defeat the invading aliens. An assault on the mother ship comes up short and a group of soldiers get stuck and have to go into combat with the aliens. It was rather cool to see the aliens holding guns and shooting at the humans.
David, once again, becomes the key to stopping the aliens and uses a ball from outer space to battle the aliens with. Enemies of the attacking aliens have decided to help humanity by sending this ball and it does help David come up with a plan to take out the queen alien. They are a hive and they follow the queen. It’s sort of strange that they behave in this fashion considering their superior intelligence and technology, but they do. David uses it to trap the queen and take the last shot for humanity to stop these bastard aliens.
INDEPENDENCE DAY RESURGENCE relied far too much on the CGI. Aliens are a very popular topic and, if done well, it will be well received. Even if the film is less than great it can hit home, but with this one, it’s very weak and treats and doesn’t have a great deal of faith in the intelligence of the audience. They spell out the relationships and situations with the characters literally. A character will explain a situation in a way that nobody would. The film was written by five writers and this may be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Although many of the ideas were very good, the execution needed work.
Bill Pullman was great in this, as he always is. He was able to bring the same sort of toughness and kindness to this role that it needed. Liam Hemsworth worked very well as the lead, but was unable to ride that line that Will Smith did in the original. The moments where he was supposed to be funny, with the exception of flipping off the aliens, didn’t work that well, where Smith had a natural funny delivery that was easily translatable to the dialogue. Jeff Goldblum was another great addition to this film and his time on the screen was compelling. Although it could be argued that he plays the same character in every film, it’s a great character to play. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Maika Monroe was the right choice for the leading lady in this, playing the tough but vulnerable president’s daughter. Her final scene when she prepares to take on the aliens after losing everything was quite good. She shifted quickly from tough to vulnerable really well in this. I should also mention that William Fichtner did a great job in his role.
With a great cast, INDEPENDENCE DAY RESURGENCE still could not overcome the mediocre screenplay and did not have the fun factor that the first one had. To its credit, it did try to be bigger than the first with more alien action, but it just misses the mark. I’m guessing that, after a big opening weekend, it will fizzle fast and won’t make the money that the first one did. What a disappointment.
Rating: 4/10
