"Independence Day: Resurgence" Review - Save Your Money, It's A Repeat

Well, when I first heard they were doing a sequel of ID4, I thought it was a pretty cool idea. Then I had heard that Will Smith would not be in it and thought, bummer.

But Will Smith may have known something we did not.

I went into the theater hoping to escape my day for a few hours but instead, I was barely pulled into this debacle of a sequel to the point that I was still thinking about my problems and wondering why I dumped my money to see this flick?

Oh yea, marketing. That's how I got tricked into dropping money on it.

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BECAUSE THIS FILM WAS SO meh, there will be spoilers in the following text.

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"Independence Day: Resurgence" has Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Bill Pullman, Vivicia Fox, Brent Spiner and a bunch more folks in a film that amounts to nothing more than a complete rehash of the first film, with cast from the first film reprising their roles, while new and younger cast members are injected into this new world that has evolved since events in ID4.

They even take a moment to explain away why Will Smith's character is not present, and in the process, make sure he ain't coming back to reprise his role.

As it stands in this new ID4, humanity of Earth has learned to come together as a people because now we know we're not alone. We've backward engineered alien technology to improve our lives and have a more 'Star Trek-like' existence. And sure, we've apparently kept alien prisoners in cells all this time.  (I wonder what it was they were feeding them? Purina Alien Chow?)

So those new developments were pretty cool to see. But then the potential fun stops about there.

The film opens up immediately into showing us the alien species getting a distress call from a mother ship on Earth, and thus, that tension is removed from the film.

We're then treated to the spirited personalities of a few newbie characters while being shown that the two humans that had direct interaction with aliens in 1996, AKA, alien tentacle wrapped around throat and used as a marionette doll, are treated as psychotic shell-shocked humans, and not as telepathically alien-connected humans.


About half an hour, maybe more, into the film, we're treated to the GIANT alien ship landing on Earth, in a ship that covers most of an entire ocean, since it's 3,000+ miles wide.

And then we're treated to various characters looking up at the obvious amount of mega-power and going into speeches about how we will win. Despite 99% of our alien-powered air force getting smite from the skies.

Then the old cast get to watch their loved ones die in a-typical fashion, just so they have a driving force for killing the aliens. Never mind that just wanting to live and not have their planet destroyed is not enough inventive.

And so it begins, where old cast pretty much act out parts from their first film, adding nothing to the context while the new cast are making potentially life-sacrificing moves and surviving each event constantly.

And the story has this count down to when they have to beat the aliens by or the planet will die thing. And of course, they defeat the enemy at their own gates, with barely a few seconds to spare.  I know, shocking, huh?

Yep, the excitement and tension was pretty non-existent. The new tech that humanity developed off the captured alien tech from '96 was pretty cool to see, and the one tribal guy with the big hatchet blade who says, they can be killed from behind, might have been the best parts of the film.

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In case you're missing my point, I felt like my money was poorly spent on the time in the theater but not a complete loss, considering the movie trailers I got to see before ID4 Resurgence started.

I can't decide on a popcorn 4 or 5 for this one...  so let me quote a few opening movie review statements from others...

Breaks far less ground than its alien invaders, but confirms director Roland Emmerich as modern cinema's most spirited conductor of popcorn chaos.  Guy Lodge·Variety

Independence Day: Resurgence is a non-movie, an insult to the blockbuster genre, and should stand only as a perfect example of Hollywood’s more glaring deficiencies as an industry. David Sims·The Atlantic

Independence Day: Resurgence pretends there's fresh ground to cover. There isn't, but director Roland Emmerich makes a good show of faking it. Peter Travers·Rolling Stone

The IMDb score right now sits at 5.8, after 15,000+ votes. Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 34%.

So wait for this flick to come to TV. It may be worth a rental fee, but if not, you will probably be able to catch an ad-riddled four-hour TV version of this two-hour movie on FX in a few years or probably less.

You know, if they had just gone straight to TV, to Syfy, it would have been an awesome move! Just saying.

{ INDEPENDENCE DAY on Amazon }

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