While definitely not a classic, Independence Day still retains it's heart on it's 20th anniversary

Rating: 8/10 (4 July 2016)

In the 1990s and the early to late 2000s, Roland Emmerich, a German director, directed a few movies. Some of them were science-fiction, action-oriented, thriller, and disaster related. This film in particular.
Aliens have come to our planet and destroyed most of our countries. Only a few people survived and with the help of the president of the White House, a military solider, and a nerdy scientist, they plan to fight against the aliens on Independence Day and destroy them once and for all.
I'm reviewing this on Independence Day because considering that's how the battle between the humans and aliens started and the sequel just came out two weeks and three days ago. Anyway, this is a really good film. Nothing awesome or anything, but still good. I understand why the Nostalgia Critic and everyone else hated this film and Roland Emmerich in general, but as a big fan of action films that have heart, this one actually worked for me. There are some problems that I want to address before I can get to the good parts.
First, the story. The concept is very fresh. The idea of humans fighting against the aliens as the part of patriotism is really original, but when it comes to the overall narrative, it's very formulaic and it does contain lots of clichés that plagued the later Roland Emmerich films. Second, some of the dialog does come across as clichéd and unbelievably cheesy and the character development seemed to be lacking at times. That's it for the flaws. Now for the good parts.
Despite what I said about the dialog, the overall acting is great. I mean, talk about a big cast of talented actors. Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Harvey Fierstein, Randy Quaid, and yours truly, Will Smith. All of these actors did really well and gives the characters some likability. Also, the one liners, aside from the cheesy and clichéd moments, are really funny, the best coming from Will Smith.
Also, the patriotism theme of the movie is presented really well and shows that if we work together as a united nation, we can defeat our enemies and bring peace to the world. The special effects, despite being a little dated, are still nice especially the spaceships designs which were also pretty cool. The action sequences are great and the explosions of all the countries are well-shot.
The best part, however, would have to go to the music score from David Arnold. The guy composed some of the later James Bond films and even did some great music for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. His score here is beyond fantastic. It has heart, it has an epic tone, it has some strong action cues, and it fits the patriotism theme of the film perfectly. Particularly with the President's speech scene which made me shed some tears. That's all I have to say.
Like I said before, I understand why the Nostalgia Critic and everyone else didn't like this film, but in spite of it's problems, I actually think this is a really good film for the fourth of July. Yes, it's a little cheesy, but to be fair, the 80s did had it's share of cheesy stuff and we were OK with it. So, overall, Independence Day is a really good patriotic science fiction action film and I think that it's one of Roland Emmerich's three best films, the other two being Stargate and the Patriot. To those who haven't seen it yet, go check it out and you'll enjoy the ride. Thumbs up. :)