Unwatchable space opera.

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 2002)

Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are two guys who give new meaning to the words "turn-off". As in "turn-off the T.V.".
I "watched" Independence Day and Godzilla on an illegal black box and sadly, I couldn't fast forward or anything with the former, I had to turn off the T.V. and wait 30 minutes, or watch it the next day, with a different scene. It didn't matter; I hated this film immensely and that once again, people were paying money to see this garbage.
Critically-lambasted, Independence Day pays homage to Aliens vs. Earth films of the past. Same plot here. 140+ minutes of boring, unwatchable celluloid.
Problems with the film are horrible acting; some of the worst ever. I especially was amused by scenes in which the aliens start attacking and some of the actors are in cars spouting off one-line sentences before going to the next scenes. Yay, Viveca A. Fox works as a stripper despite the fact that her boyfriend, played by Will Smith, has a high-paying job with the government. The film is one-sided, with the aliens destroying everything in their path and the humans are simply helpless until they discover the solution. The same lame dialogue prevalent in these films remain. The biggest sin of Independence Day is that it has no heart and that it gave ideas to Tim Burton for "Mars Attacks", another film that I'll have some fun "reviewing".
Bottom line: If you want to see the otherwise good SFX and stuff and can tolerate sub-standardness everywhere else, jump right in. Otherwise, this movie makes the prior Devlin-Emmerich helmed "Stargate" look like Casablanca.