Independence Day: Resurgence

What can we say about a film Independence Day: Resurgence? A summer blockbuster to one of the best summer blockbusters, Independence Day.

I loved Independence Day. It has good jokes, good characters, good action, great speeches, and a super patriotic feel by the end. It is wonderful. A sequel has a lot to live up to for it and one that would be really hard to match, let alone surpass.

But also, also. If you didn’t know, the studios decided to cancel all Press Screenings for this film, outside of like a world premier and day of screenings. My reps thankfully let us watch it the Thursday night of at a regular show time, so I of course went the full on IMAX 3D for the full on spectacle. But cancelling press screenings is probably the worst thing you can do to drive up hype. It didn’t work for No Good Deed, and it certainly wouldn’t work for this film.

Take that smug look off of your face Liam, you don’t know if this movie is any good.

Twenty years ago, the world stood up to an alien invasion and destroyed those fuckers to save the human race. Good job everyone!

This led to World Peace, as we knew our petty squabbles were complete bullshit. Earth Defense was the most important thing. So we all worked together and used Alien technology to rebuild. Our destroyed cities became more high tech (more TVs?). We got sweeter weapons. We got an Orbital defense system, sweet ass jet fighters that can go into space, and a fucking moon base!

Former President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is an old man who has strange dreams and keeps imagining some strange symbol. His daughter (Maika Monroe), grew up to be a fighter pilot as well and now works for the new president (Sela Ward). David Levinson (Jeff Goldbloom) is now an Alien expert working for the UN and currently in Africa to speak to a warlord (Deobia Oparei). The warlord killed a lot of aliens in combat, but is now seeing things and tech is being strange. Also in Africa is a Alien psychologist (Catherine Gainsbourg), and some reporter maybe who is a poor mans comic relief (Nicolas Wright). David, sadly, doesn’t hang out with his dad (Judd Hirsch) as much as he used to.

Oh yeah, speaking of fighter pilots, the president’s daughter is dating Jake (Liam Hemsworth). He is a hot headed kid, really great pilot, but a risk taker. His co-pilot is a smart guy/old friend Charlie (Travis Tope). The actual best pilot is Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the step son of Will Smith’s character. Smith isn’t in the movie, because he died 11 years prior to this movie doing test pilot stuff. But the mom (Vivica A. Fox) is still around! And China’s best pilot is Rain Lao (Angelababy), people love her too.

So many people, so little time. Aliens are coming, bigger than ever. This time the spaceship is over 3,000 miles long! They really want our planet, damn it. Brent Spiner and John Storey return to their old roles, William Fichtner plays a general, and Chin Han is a moon base commander.

The aliens sure do have this planet on…lock down. Yeaaaaaaaaaaah!

When you have a sequel, you are allowed to compare it to its predecessor, no matter how long it took to come out. So let’s do it over and over again to get my points across.

In the first film, we have world wide destruction. All of the major cities get hit and more. Armies are wiped out. In the second film, the only places hurt are a moon base, some of Area 51, and wherever the ship decided to land its planks. Literally no big attacking or trying to wipe out of any threats.

In the first film, we have one of the best speeches ever given by President Whitmore. It makes me tear up thinking about it. In the second film, he gives another speech and it is pointless and lame. We also get a different half-assed presidential speech after that, also pointless, given how World Peace was already established.

In the first film, our leads were a president, a fighter pilot wanna be step dad and wanna be astronaut, and a smart dude who worked in television. In the second film, our leads are the president’s daughter, the pilot’s step son, a new character who is connected to the first two in age and experience, and the same smart dude with less quirks. A lot of new cast members we are supposed to care about because they are related to people we cared about in the first film, without developing them in anyway at all.

In the first film, our characters had heart, emotions, and as a viewer the whole experience was fun. In the second film, the heart and sadness is taken away, and I am not having fun, just waiting for the thing to finish.

Although the return of Dr. Brakish Okun was the smartest move on their part.

Independence Day: Resurgence had some nice moments. I liked what they did with the Queen at the end of the movie, giving us something unique. But our final explosions of the bad guy ships were practically non existent and ended quickly. Resurgence had a ton of editing issues, where so many parts felt rushed, yet the ending with its stereotypical count down clock dragged on and on.

There were so many characters introduced and barely used, yet the sequel is almost 30 minutes shorter than its predecessor. An African Warchief why? Because he had swords? Angelababy’s character was supposed to be the second best pilot or something and despite her role, her character’s name wasn’t even uttered in any form throughout the film. That pisses me off so much. I shouldn’t have to wait for credits to find out something as important as a character’s name.

There will be more Independence Day movies, but the future of this franchise is going to be something completely unlike the 1996 classic. In fact, a big part of this film is dedicated just to setting up future films and maintaining a pointless mysterious air, instead of focusing on the film at hand. It is no wonder they canceled the press screenings. They barely even released a coherent film this time around. You’d think after 20 years they’d be able to focus on this one task and not have their eyes towards the future.