The movie that made Will Smith a star and began a resurgence in alien invasion movies...

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2017)

When it comes to sci-fi alien invasion stories, older generations think of HG Wells' War of the Worlds, which spawned a classic radio broadcast and two movie versions, both of which were successful. Then came Invasion of the Flying Saucers, and then Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Star Wars would soon put the genre to rest. In the mid 90s, the directors of the surprise hit Stargate came up with an idea to make a big budget alien invasion movie set on our favorite holiday in this country...Independence Day. The movie would soon break records and gross around $800 million worldwide and sell even more on VHS, laserdisc, and then DVD and bluray and digital HD and pay TV, and the rest is history. Watching it today vs 21 years ago is kinda outdated but this movie is much better than the box office failure that was Resurgence and the movie that Centropolis made two years after ID4, a rehash of Godzilla that wasn't as good as the original one or even the 2014 reboot. The visual effects in the movie as well as the sound mix are pretty good, the casting is great, and the acting is classy.