Just another ten minute movie . . .

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2014)

'Independence Day' is what I call a 'ten minute movie'. It gives you so little to think about that walking out of the theater it stays in your mind for about ten minutes. But maybe that is the way the filmmakers want it. It's like Disney World – Just see the sights, enjoy the rides and don't ask too many questions.
The plot is not exactly new, a race of aliens have flown millions of light years in giant flying saucers and have their ships hovering over the major cities of the world (But curiously they seem to all be hovered over American landmarks). The reason: They have planned a timed attack which is not only affixed to our system of measuring time but is only discovered by one lone guy (Jeff Goldblum) in with a laptop.
The movie doesn't deliver anything that couldn't be found in a 50s alien invasion movie or a 70s disaster movie. As for the characters, somebody must have left the floodgates at Central Casting. We get a computer nerd (Goldblum), his Jewish father (Judd Hircsh), a hotshot pilot (Will Smith), The President (Bill Pullman), A wacko scientist (Brent Spiner), a stripper housewife (Vivica A. Fox) and a drunken pilot (Randy Quaid). All that is missing are George Kennedy, Robert Stack, O.J. Simpson, Linda Blair, Shelley Winters and Red Buttons.
The invasion scenes don't leave anything new either. Just hundreds of people running and screaming as monuments get blown up one by one and oddly all of them are American. What about the Eiffel Tower, The Taj Mahal, The coliseum, The Great Wall or Barney.
What do they want? To kill us of course. The aliens come off in 'Independence Day' like interstellar cockroaches which (if I understood it correctly), find a planet inhabit it and destroy it. I liked the idea that the aliens in David Twohy's 'The Arrival' had much better. They used our environment against us so that they could terraform the earth and take over. Heck even Marvin the Martian had the excuse that our planet was blocking his view of Venus.
Even the scene in which we find out their intentions is flat and boring. The scene builds with a question we have been wondering about all along but can't answer it intelligently. See what you think: The President (to the alien): 'What do you want us to do?' The alien: 'Die!' Gripping huh? The director Roland Emmerich keeps the aliens under wraps for most of the movie. Then when we finally get to seem them they are boring, tired old octopus creatures with tentacles and slimy skin. Ho-hum. Consider the fun aliens in 'Mars Attacks', small creatures with large-brains and bug-eyes who cackle with glee when they fry congress.
'Independence Day' is an event movie designed for the moment to be packaged advertised and sold on 2,000 screens. The main interest is giving the audience what they want. All of the budget has gone into the special effects and the oversized ad campaign (Why did the call it ID4, wouldn't that stand for Independence Day 4?) I wasn't looking for the greatest movie ever but I was looking for a spark of originality. The movie does the job for action fans but, you know, I'd give it all up for one whiny alien with an Iludium Pu-36 Explosive space modulator.