The spoiler warning is just for another movie I talk about

Rating: 4/10 (25 May 2006)

Independence Day, a rehash of the 50's movie Earth v The Flying Saucers, is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood movies of the century . . . Oh wait a second, no it's not.
If you've ever seen the above mentioned 50's movie then you should be able to accurately guess the basic plot outline of this movie, if you haven't then you probably can still figure it out, aliens come, we don't understand why they're here, they blow us away, we figure out some way of beating them, beat them and go out for a big pancake breakfast to celebrate. The 50's movie had a few things going for it, such as paranoia about Soviet attack and air power, and a recent surge of interest in UFO's and the paranormal.
ID4, in the 90's, couldn't capitalize on those, since the Soviets were gone and UFO's were just mainstream pop-culture by now, so the filmmakers decided that they would make the film overly patriotic, practically gushing sentiment and pride, as a cheap way to attract viewers. Here's a good rule of thumb, when a movie has to appeal to ones sense of patriotism just to get you to even think about going to see it, don't go see it.
There are other irksome things about this movie, Will Smith's one liners, the absurd alien attack plan, the inaccuracy about Area 51(for starters Area 51 is not the airbase's official name), endless unsympathetic characters, and let's not forget the absolutely moronic way that the hero's disable the alien shields. If memory serves me, In Earth v The Flying Saucers we discover that a specific radio wave that causes the Saucer's guidance system to malfunction, while it's a leap of faith to believe that a simple radio wave can have such an amazing effect on a device designed to guide a complex spaceship across countless light-years, the thing they came up with in ID4 is absolutely unbelievable.
On the plus side the special effects look great, even after all these years, which alone is a good reason to at least catch the movie when it's on TV. And certain elements of the movie work well. The destruction of monuments and cities is as unnerving as it should be. But it's just too little to make a difference.
All in all not very good.