There's so much character and so much quality in this epic destruction blockbuster...

Rating: 6/10 (14 February 2020)

...that it's easy to see why it's not just the quintessential example of its genre but still regarded as a classic. The glut of lessor imitators has shown Independence Day's great use of sets and design and multiple characters and the deliberate pacing and intelligently used destruction. Yeah it's still rah rah USA but less so than I remembered, maybe because it's so much more tame than recent flicks like Transformers. And it's still extremely cheesy and contrived but only in exactly the right measures for a summer blockbuster. It fuses a ton of genres and ends up being a bloated but undeniably fun retro ride.