A Review of “Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)”

 

I enjoyed “Independence Day (1996)” even if the movie itself was dumb and silly because, in the end, it was incredibly fun. I was honestly surprised to hear the movie get a sequel 20 years later but the trailers never really pulled me in and all the bad reviews deterred me from giving it a watch myself. Plus Will Smith was not returning due to scheduling conflict with Suicide Squad and they decided to have his character killed off-screen which is annoying. Still, Roland Emmerich who directed the first one was returning for the sequel so it had potential to be good. Anyway since it is independence day I’ve decided to give the movie a chance and see for myself if the movie was as bad as people say it was.

The premise of the movie is that 20 years after the alien invasion, nations across the world started to use recovered extraterrestrial technology to develop an immense defence program. When the alien invaders return and attack with unprecedented force, the U.S. president, teams of scientists and brave fighter pilots spring into action to save the planet from a seemingly invincible enemy.

Firstly, I want to praise the concept and idea of this movie. The humans using alien technology and preparing for the next alien invasion is an interesting idea. Shame they don’t do much with it but oh well. The destruction in the first act of the movie is cool though and the CGI, in general, is visually impressive.

Secondly, I’ve got to praise the returning actors’ Jeff Goldblum, Brent Spiner and Bill Pullman who return as their respective characters from the first movie. Both Jeff, Brent and Bill still give great, charismatic performances despite the really poor script. Experience and veteran actors like Sela Ward as the new president and William Fichtner as space commander are also really good in the film. Liam Hemsworth as “Jake Morrison” is one of the few genuinely good new and young actors and is also able to give a somewhat good performance with the bad script.

That is all the praise I can give this movie because it is bad and not a good sequel. On the topic of new actors, Jessie Usher as “Dylan Hiller” stepson of “Steven Hiller”, Will Smith’s character from the first movie, is terrible. Jessie has no charm or any of the emotional range of Steven Hiller. He never gives any quips like Steven and the moments that are meant to be emotional are not there because Jessie fails to deliver a good performance. It may not necessarily be his fault as the script is atrocious but his character doesn’t live up to his father. There is also this Chinese actress Angela Yeung Wing as “Rain Lao” who is quite bad as well as she gives a boring performance but then again her character is just written to be a good looking person in the battle. Another reason why this script is really poor. The other new actors do a somewhat decent job but none of them really stand out.

I’ve already mentioned a dozen times but the script is just dumb. A fair amount of lines spouted out by the actors just feel like it was written by a 10-year-old and are not even amusing or funny. A lot of dialogue feel utterly meaningless and add nothing to the movie. One of the charms about the original movie was the quips of Will Smith which even though it was cheesy, it was able to give me a small chuckle. In this movie, it feels like they are trying really hard to get us to laugh with over the top cartooney performance and dumb written dialogue. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work and it makes this movie almost a pain to get through.

The story in the first movie was dumb and despite the interesting idea in this movie, it is still pretty dumb. Just like the first movie, you are going to have to shut your logic brain because a lot of moments in this movie require you to just believe that can happen. However, the third act in this movie is even more unconvincing and more stupid than the first movie and makes me genuinely believe the aliens are stupid. It also retreads a lot of similar ground to the first movie with destruction first act then attempted but failed mission second act and unconvincing plan but successful third act. It’s just the same plot and concept of the first movie but given a new coat of paint and that is lazy.

Additionally, the action scenes in this movie are just not as entertaining as the first one. There is a dogfight similar to the first movie but in this case, it is just a cluster of grey CGI spaceships shooting laser beams all over the place with no idea who the good guys and bad guys are. It’s just boring and uninspiring. The final fight is also just not that epic and had a lot of incredibly stupid moments.

This is a very unsatisfying sequel and is inferior to the first movie in everywhere. Independence day 1996 was dumb but unique and was a really fun experience. However, Independence Day Resurgence is just dumb in general. The movie also has the nerve and audacity to tease a sequel at the end and honestly with its poor box office performance, I am glad that it will never happen. The first movie made an alien invasion exciting, Resurgence makes it forgettable and boring.