Very few sequels can top the original. Movies like The Godfather, Part 2and The Empire Strikes Back were the exceptions. Twenty years ago Independence Day hit theaters and was a special effects marvel. Now, we have the not so much eagerly awaited sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence who’s CGI makes it less so. Warning, spoilers ahead…
After ID4ended, we as an audience always knew they were coming back. What we didn’t know was that it was going to take this many years. Now that the aliens are back with a Godzilla size Queen leading the way, I’m not sure anyone cares. What took so long? Questions like this never get addressed. I thoroughly enjoyed the original and given the technology of the time, it has more than held up over the last 20 years. So much so, that it looks more realistic than the sequel does. The reality of CGI in today’s movie world is that it has overtaken big budget films and quite frankly, it has made such films less spectacular in so many ways. But that’s not the reason (or the sole reason), why Resurgence has problems. Unlike the original that tugged at our patriotic strings and our resolve as a human race to survive and go on, this sequel lacks that emotional charge that led audiences to that climatic showdown against the aliens.
To its credit, Resurgencedoes its best to recapture the spirit of the original. Whether it’s with images of Will Smith or seeing the names of those characters who had lost their lives during the alien invasion of twenty years ago. They even go as far as making the children of these heroes carry the responsibility of saving our world from the brink of extinction much like their parents did two decades earlier. Instead of Smith’s Captain Hillar leading the charge with Jeff Goldblum as his co-pilot, we have his son Dylan (Jessie T. Usher). Joining Dylan is hotshot pilot Jake (Liam Hemsworth) and Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), President Whitmore’s (Bill Pullman) daughter. Together they represent humanities only hope. Perhaps a better title would have been Independence Day: The Next Generation.
The idea was good but the story with its five different screenwriters attached, lacked any cohesive structure or execution. And if I had to do a destruction count, Resurgenceout does ID4 by such a large amount that it would make Michael Bay proud.
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Jessie T. Usher, Travis Tope, William Fichtner and Judd Hirsch
PG13 119 Mins
INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE – **1/2 (out of 5 stars)
May the Dork be with you,
JPB
