Independence Day: Resurgence

When I was younger going to the movies was as exciting for me as anything.  It always felt special and grand.  Most of all it felt important.  I can’t explain why because I scarcely feel that way anymore when I step inside a theater.  Not because I don’t enjoy it or I don’t get excited; it just rarely feels as special as it was when I was young.  Movie theaters are my church and I look forward to every sermon, but they’re no longer larger than life to my adult eyes.  I don’t look at that as a sad thing; I’m older and that’s what happens.

There are films on the release calendar that I have mentally highlighted, but once upon a time, all I had were the posters in the theater lobby.  I remember seeing the huge display for Jurassic Park that showcased the famous gates referenced in the film as a nod to King Kong. I saw the line “A Steven Spielberg Film” and immediately knew that whenever this movie (that looked to be about dinosaurs behind the scary gates from the guy that made films that already awed me) came out, I had to be there.  And I was.

The second time that something like that happened, and maybe the last one, was when I saw the poster for Independence Day.  It contained an enormously sinister looking spaceship hovering over the Empire State Building with the sky the color of a golden sunset.  It was sitting right over my city and I immediately thought, “How are they gonna bring these guys down?”  The second thought was “How long until this comes out?”  The anticipation grew and grew until it was opening night on a July 4th weekend in 1996.  The line was around the block and the theater was sold out.  What transpired when the lights went down is what every theater experience dreams to be about.  Everyone laughed, cried (yes cried), and cheered as one.  It was one of the best times I’ve ever had at a theater.  Maybe the best ever.

Of course years passed, and the film’s imperfections showed it’s age quickly.  It’s effects are not as incredible, and it’s charm gave way to cheese.  It’s not a film that I revisit often, because my original fondness for it has dwindled.  But that will never take away from what it was like the first time I saw it.  Independence Day will always remain a reminder of what it means to go to the movies.

Which is why it’s sequel fell flat.

I don’t fault the new film for it’s 20 year gap, or my lack of immense anticipation for it. I’m no longer ten years old and trailers, along with internet reports of casting and plot points, have replaced the imagination of a great poster. The new film can’t help any of that. Where the fault lies with Roland Emmerich’s sequel is that I felt nothing for it.  I wasn’t wowed by it’s destruction or charmed by it’s characters; I didn’t care quite frankly if the earth was destroyed or it’s people pulled off another miracle.  It probably doesn’t help that the story is a carbon copy of the first film, but even with that I can’t find fault (I didn’t mind that about The Force Awakens) because all this film had to do was be entertaining.  And it really isn’t.

The film picks up twenty years after the events of the first, and sees the nations of Earth united in defending the planet with the advanced alien technology that was left over from the previous attack.  The problem is that the aliens come back with bigger ships and superior weaponry.  They quickly wipe out more landmarks and what has to be at least two third’s of the earth’s population.  These sequences have a few moments of genuinely frightening CGI destruction, but it’s ruined when most of our main characters just shrug it off or literally fly through it.

The characters are the real problem though as there are just too many, causing them to be spread thin.  The climax of the film is inter-cut between almost six or seven  groups of people that we are supposed to care about.   But I either didn’t care, or in some cases, I was rooting for the aliens. I only thought Bill Pullman, reprising his role as President Whitmore, made an impact on the proceedings.  To be fair, he is given the most to play with.  Jeff Goldblum had a few moments where he made me grin, but it felt more like his performance in The Lost World compared to the ones from Jurassic Park or ID4.  And I have no idea why they felt the need to take Brent Spiner’s perfectly memorable Dr. Okun of the first film, and turn him into unfunny comic relief with as much screen-time as Pullman.

There are plot points that I could nitpick to death, but that’s not the point of my disappointment with Independence Day: Resurgence.  Because I don’t care about that stuff if the film is memorable.  But it isn’t memorable.

It means nothing to me.

Grade: D