Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) Review

Time: 120 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Liam Hemsworth as Jake Morrison
Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson
Jessie Usher as Dylan Dubrow-Hiller
Bill Pullman as Thomas J. Whitmore
Maika Monroe as Patricia Whitmore
Sela Ward as Elizabeth Lanford
William Fichtner as Joshua Adams
Judd Hirsch as Julius Levinson
Brent Spiner as Dr. Brakish Okun
Patrick St. Esprit as Reese Tanner
Vivica A. Fox as Jasmine Dubrow-Hiller
Angelababy as Rain Lao
Director: Roland Emmerich

As the Fourth of July nears, satellite engineer David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) investigates a 3,000-mile-wide mother ship that’s approaching Earth. 20 years earlier, nations across the world started to use recovered extra-terrestrial technology to develop an immense defence program. When the alien invaders 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.

I liked Independence Day, I don’t love it as much as others do but it was an enjoyable film nonetheless. I wasn’t really excited when the sequel was announced, it felt too late, if this film was to be created, it should have been done 10 years ago. None of the trailers particularly hyped me. After seeing it, I can say now that Independence Day Resurgence is not really good. The story is messy with subplots and bad humour as well as questionable visual effects. It’s not horrendous, but I still don’t think this movie is worth watching.

The most surprising thing about this movie is how long it felt. It was actually only two hours long but it felt so much longer. The pacing is to blame for the most part, the first act jumps all over the place to introduce all the characters (and I’ll get to them later) and it moves at a very slow pace. Even in the last act, I felt completely bored. This is probably because unlike the first film, the sequel doesn’t have any charisma, it’s not exciting and just feels oddly generic. There are also so many pointless subplots that go absolutely nowhere. I think I should bring up the humour, there’s so many jokes thrown into this movie, and it’s quite obvious when they try to be funny. None of the jokes except one actually lands in the movie, the rest are cringe. Oh and I should mention that this movie has an obvious set up to a sequel that will never happen.

The actors are fine for the most part but are only good as the material that are provided to them, which is to say, not great. It’s enjoyable seeing some of the original cast, particularly, Jeff Goldblum, who’s hands down the best part of the movie. However there are just way too many characters in this movie, at one point the focus shifts to some random kids who have no relevance, it’s very jarring and confusing. The film didn’t need so many characters, the first film certainly didn’t need it. Also some of the characters are given way too much screen time certain characters like Brent Spiner’s returning character and a guy named Floyd… the latter being particularly annoying.

Oddly enough the special effects in the first film work better than in here. While the effects here aren’t the absolute worst, they do look very fake looking at times, sometimes Star Wars prequel levels of visual quality, especially when it came to the ships. But even some of the non-action scenes, the visuals looked weird, there was just way too much CGI on screen, sometimes it looked like a video game cut scene. In terms of the camera work, its fine, you can actually see what’s going on.

Independence Day: Resurgence isn’t one of the worst films I’ve seen but is definitely flawed. The film felt too long, the dialogue was bad, the pointless subplots are endless, the effects were too fake looking, it’s not a good movie at all, borderline bad. Overall I think that it’s just a mediocre movie, I didn’t hate it. If you didn’t like the original, you probably won’t like this movie, and if you do like the original, it could go either way, however I have a feeling you won’t like it either. I didn’t expect much from this movie and yet I got less than I thought I would get.

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