1776 meets 1957

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2003)

ID4 is "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" with a budget. But it also owes a great deal to any number of other, earlier alien-peril/sky-fi flicks. Most obvious among these is "The War of the Worlds," including the unsuccessful use of the Bomb and the ultimate demise of the invaders by means of a virus (albeit a computer virus this time). "ID4" also borrows from the "Star Wars" saga, mainly the massive dogfight battles and an against-all-odds, intrusive attack on the Death Star-esque mothership.
Despite the spectacle of the destruction of entire cities, the movie is tremendously upbeat. Ironically (since director/co-writer Roland Emmerich is from Germany), "ID4" celebrates a lot of traditional American values: bravery, heroism, self-sacrifice, helping one another in the face of disaster, resourcefulness, love, loyalty, faith, the Bomb and the reluctance to use it, marriage, family--and ham radio. Emmerich also showed a similar grasp of basic Americana in "The Patriot," though his remake of "Godzilla" is about as non-Japanese as could be imagined.
Predictably, a great many critics sneered at the movie for its embrace of such "old-fashioned" values. They preferred that summer's "other" alien-invasion flick, "The Arrival." See my comments about that turkey for my take on why that was the case.