‘Independence Day Resurgence’ review: They had 20 years to prepare and it certainly was a disaster
“We had 20 years to prepare… so did they,” was the tagline for Independence Day: Resurgence, a science fiction sequel to the 1996 blockbuster, proving that the film’s creators are just as culpable as the humans in the film for the sub-par follow-up.
Set twenty years after the events of the first film, the aliens are coming back and the humans think they are ready, but discover how outgunned they are by a powerful and much larger Mother Ship. Landmarks have been rebuilt to give filmmakers obligatory scenes of destruction as the story and action sequences follows the exact same story as the first film.
ID2 sees the return of Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman in significant roles as newcomers Jessie Usher and Liam Hemsworth share the new role of protagonist with President Whitmore’s daughter (Maika Monroe) to ease the pain of Will Smith’s absence.
Pullman’s Whitmore, who says in the trailer, “We convinced an entire generation that this is a battle that we can win. We sacrificed for each other, no matter what the cost. And that’s worth fighting for.”
What was not worth fighting for was a decent concept. The first film was War of the Worlds 2.0 and Resurgence struggles to be a knockoff of ID4 and Starship Troopers. After some box office success in the 1990’s director Roland Emmerich struggles to develop anything remotely interesting. It’s hard to blame Emmerich with a slew of writers all trying to save this horrible script for Fox, but Emmerich made horrible, distracting blunders.
Smith, as I mentioned, will not appear, but the audience will be reminded of this over and over again. Vivica A. Fox somehow went from stripper to doctor in her brief role and Brent Spiner’s Dr. Brakish Okun rants like Doc Brown in between intrusive scenes to include a same-sex couple on screen.
The destruction scene of the first film was groundbreaking, still entertaining to watch today, but that devastation has been eclipsed in other films (World War Z being one of my favorites). There is never any real suspense or twist worthy of note, but popcorn entertainment. The CGI falls apart around the “swarming” scenes of chaos, a real let down consider that’s the backbone of the film’s existence.
Judd Hirsch has a nice return as Julius Levinson, David’s father, but he is pimping some book, trying to exploit the tragedy? Hirsch’s character returns to familiar territory the rest of the film, but is just irrelevant.
Independence Day: Resurgence receives 2 stars out of 5 stars
The film isn’t as entertaining as anyone hoped and the setup for another chapter is just awful. One can only hope that the sub-par box office draw will scare away the studio execs from making the equivalent of a direct to DVD film.