Emmerich re-writes history.

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2000)

After the awful Independence Day, Emmerich moves his American fetish to a further level, at the expense of all but the American's it seems. To add insult to injury, Mel Gibson does an impressive performance as Mad Max in the war of independence, playing his second role against hideously stereotyped English.
Let's get one thing straight. If anyone studies American History, they will find that there were errors on both sides of the Atlantic during the time surrounding the events taken place in this film. The English were portrayed unfairly and ridiculously... it is feasible that men that belonged to the world-wide spanning English Empire would run their troops over a hill when they couldn't see the bottom? Hmmm... Emmerich should be in the military with his tactical abilities.
The characters were two dimensional... the sub-plots were extremely tedious and unbelievable, the conflict supposedly in Gibson's character was practically nonexistent. And the story was perhaps one of the most uninspired threads since Godzilla.
Emmerich has a lot of technical skill in film making, he can craft quite impressive sequences and has a real eye for action. But he can't quite understand that people no longer are entertained by faceless action... look at Mission Impossible 2... terrible, purely because Woo's style is getting old and used.
Overall, I was terribly offended by this movie, so much to the stage that I actually was cheering the extraordinarily evil bad guy on. This film takes into account none of the back story to the war and concentrates purely on an subjective US view. It completely dismisses US atrocities like slavery and later, segregation, and there is no hint of the massacre of Native Americans. The French are also portrayed in a false form, their motive for helping the American's was pure revenge for the loss in their previous war to England. Plus, no one believed the colonies could function independently and therefore they would be in a prime position to take them over.
This film really instills a sense of patriotism within you, especially if your English. I would recommend anyone with a knowledge of American History watching it, to see how much history can be changed by a situation licking director.