Independence
Day: Resurgence
David Levinson: "I've had years to get us ready. We never had a chance."
President Whitmore: "We didn't last time either."
Independence Day: Resurgence is directed
by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day,
The Day After Tomorrow, The Patriot, 1998's Godzilla) and stars Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, Bill Pullman
as President Whitmore, Liam Hemsworth as Jake Morrison, Jessie T. Usher as
Dylan Hiller, William Fichtner as General Adams, Maika Monroe as Patricia
Whitmore, Sela Ward as President Lanford, Judd Hirsch as Julius Levinson, Brent
Spiner as Dr. Brakish Okun, Charlotte Gainsbourg as Catherine Marceuax,
Angelababy as Rain Lao, Vivica A. Fox as Jasmine Hiller, Deobia Oparei as
Dikembe Umbutu, and Nicholas Wright as Floyd Rosenberg.
Am I leaving anyone out? Oh well. It's probably just about 30 more people.
Aliens are back, with an even bigger
ship, after 20 years of the events of 1996's Independence Day when humans beat the crap out of the hostile
aliens. Explosions happen and the end of the world is on the line. Luckily we
have also had 20 years to advance our technology using alien technology. With
these huge jumps in military and social aspects of the human species, the only
logical conclusion to defeat the returning aliens is to bring back Jeff Goldblum
and a bunch of other side characters. Woo! Dr. Malcolm!
I can't not have a Dr. Malcolm meme.
I am a fan of the cheesy, but fun Independence Day that came out in 1996. It's a crazy ride with aliens and humanity standing as one race (along with some destruction going on in the background). Due to this, I can't say I was excited or even asking for a sequel. Independence Day: Resurgence is, once again, a crazy stupid fun experience, but with one huge downside: Most of the time, it isn't fun. Independence Day: Resurgence tries too hard to be campy, which I didn't think people tried to do. Grant it, the predecessor is campy and cheesy, but it at least had fun and charismatic characters that gave importance to the film. Unfortunately, the majority of the cast in this sequel didn't even look like they were having fun. All of their lines were just said without any substance. Liam Hemsworth is the clichéd badass that saves the day in the end with help from his flight crew, Jessie T. Usher is the workaholic flight captian who cares about his job and by the end enjoys the company of his friends, Brent Spiner is the crazy doctor who no one pays attention to and then by the end people listen to him because he isn't so crazy after all. It's totally a paint by numbers film. It was almost if they played really dumb Sci-Fy channel movie characters. Even those movies are self aware enough that they know the plot and the characters are stupid. Resurgence is just the same thing as its original. That's not the point I'm making though. The point I'm making is that even though it is the same movie as the original, it isn't as fun as the original. The lack of energy is totally detectable. I'm sorry Jeff, you actually looked like you were having fun and the entire cast basically mailed in their performance and didn't give a s**t.
I can see why Will Smith turned down his reprising role of Captain Steven Hiller.
I will give Independence Day: Resurgence the benefit of the doubt and say that there are some cool action moments throughout the movie. For example, Some of destruction scenes involving falling buildings is catastrophically cool looking, if that's a thing that could be considered cool. Most of the special effects with the aliens is eye catching, but with these end-of-the-world movies, there are lots of opportunities for mistakes to arise. The special effects team pretty much bit off more than they could chew (they basically went overboard with special effects). This is pretty typical for a film with a budget of $200 million US dollars! The sky battles between the humans and aliens were filled with these overabundance of special effects. The problem with having this is that it doesn't allow the viewer to appreciate the actual effects, instead a barrage of lasers, flying ships, and explosions hit the screen (not to mention cheesy one liners like "Thank me later!" "Nah. I'll thank you now!").
A warning if I'm with you in the car and we see this from a distance, I will soil my pants and the car. I'm sorry.
A film can be filled with clichés and still be entertaining. However, there is only so much one can bear with face palming one liners, predictable deaths/victories, and crazy quirky characters that bring the comedy relief. I can say that Independence Day: Resurgence is one of those unbearable action films that thinks it has the charming and riveting factors that Independence Day did, but it sadly doesn't at all. Annoying characters with no depth played by actors who were there just to get a check made this possibly one of the worst movies this year. Yay. I honestly saw a lot of potential in Resurgence, but nobody cared to make an effort to bring a great science fiction action movie to life. It is a film no one really asked for and it was dead on arrival. The sucky thing is that there is a set up in Resurgence for another (possibly more than one) sequel. Dear god, please help us.
1.9/5
PRO
- Some cool action scenes
- Unfortunately, the other action scenes are overpopulated with too many special effects
- Cast seems to not care about putting an effort
- Overused clichés are found everywhere
- Basically the same plot as previous film, but a little bit bigger and not as fun
Independence Day: Resurgence is rated PG-13 for sci-fi action, and for some language
Click here to watch the trailer
Independence Day: Resurgence is in theaters everywhere now
No comments:
Post a Comment