Fun special-effects filled extravaganza, nothing more

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2016)

Watching this on a back-to-back with EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, I was surprised to see how similar the two films are. Despite being separated by forty years, the plots are basically the same, both casts are full of military types, and even the way that the aliens are finally destroyed are very similar. It feels like INDEPENDENCE DAY is in fact a remake of EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, and I'll bet that at least some of the scriptwriters viewed that film in advance (or maybe when they were kids). Anyway, it's sad to think that now we have unlimited budgets and state of the art CGI animation, we still can't do everything right. When it comes down to it, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS is a more enjoyable film than INDEPENDENCE DAY.
The trouble with INDEPENDENCE DAY is that, clocking in at two hours and nineteen minutes, it's just far too long. Sitting through this film feels like a chore and it's difficult to stop yourself becoming bored during the scenes where aliens aren't around. Let's face it, there's just too much sickly sentimentalising of the worst kind in this film, where all I wanted to see was more alien destruction. We are forced to sit through excruciating scenes of the president's wife dying ("she's sleeping...") and people in love which are totally out of place and quite embarrassing.
Not much of it is original either - when it looks like something clever is coming along, the film makers just decide to blow everything up instead to make the biggest spectacle. I guess the fault here lives in Devlin and Emmerich, the guys who made this film and GODZILLA, but at least this isn't as bad as that trash. At least they managed to assemble a memorable cast, but most people are wasted in their roles and frankly there are just too many sub plots and different characters to make you care about any of them. Jeff Goldblum just plays out his usual lovable scientist routine, like he does in just about every film I see him in. Will Smith enjoys himself in his first big screen outing, yet he's nothing more than a two-dimensional, gung-ho type hero who spends much of his screen time as comic relief. The two partners of the aforementioned are useless too, let's just say I'm not a big fan of television movie-style acting. Thankfully, we've also got Judd Hirsch in the role of Goldblum's father, a grumpy old man, and he's great.
The role of the US President is played as a snivelling, stupid wimp by none other than Bill Pullman, and I hate his miscast performance here. It should be more like Harrison Ford in AIR FORCE ONE, as at least that was fun. Pullman is probably most at fault in the film for his stomach-churning sentimentalising, and it's a shame he didn't die at the end. Randy Quaid is also in the cast, and he totally overdoes it as an alien abduction victim. Robert Loggia appears as a tough military type, and he's well suited to the role - he fits it like a glove. Nobody else is sufficiently interesting for me to mention them.
Anyway, if you watch this film, just forget about the scenes with people in, instead watch the epic destruction of America by the aliens. The CGI special effects come into their own here and they're some of the best we've had for a long time, they truly are visually stunning. The huge alien saucers look amazing, and when the final second arrives on the satellite countdown, the destruction doesn't disappoint as nuclear blasts through cars into the air and demolish buildings within seconds. While the small flying saucers don't look as impressive, at least they have a groovy-looking turquoise shield which protects them from enemy fire, and there are some exciting battle sequences between the humans and aliens. Speaking of aliens, they themselves are not particularly inspired, just tentacled humanoids which we've seen a billion times before, the only different thing this time is that their eyes are shiny and mirrored instead of black.
So, all in all, if you want a modern B-movie, then check out INDEPENDENCE DAY. While majorly flawed, it's worth watching for all the special effects and explosions and has a fun spirit too. In the end, it's not bad, but it could have been a lot better.