Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Bill Pullman, Brent Spiner, Maika Monroe, Jessie Usher, William Fichtner, Sela Ward
They should have left well enough alone with Independence Day. A sequel was unnecessary. Yet, here it is in all of its loud glory. The aliens want their revenge and once again Earth is left in shambles. It is competently made with visuals you would expect, but the original film spawned imitators galore, so much so that its sequel feels like a retread itself. I could have easily lived without it.
The film opens in 2016, but it is hardly present day. The technology of hovering motor vehicles makes it feel futuristic. The aliens attacked 20 years ago and Earth has not only been rebuilt, but there have been no wars in the interim. All nations get along in perfect harmony. Former President Whitmore (Pullman) is haunted by visions of returning aliens and symbols he doesn't understand. There are other cast members haunted by these visions (accompanied seemingly by migraines), but no explanation as to why only certain people see these visions.
The aliens soon attack Earth, as well as a lunar space station, and once again whole cities are decimated in seconds and millions die. They seem more powerful and invincible this time, but of course there is a way to stop them. I have complained about alien attacks in previous reviews and here I'll go again. It baffles me how these aliens, with their supposedly superior intellect and technology, can travel light years to reach us and miss on important details that could crush their invasion. They always leave the back door open. And it isn't like their weakness is hard to discover. It takes Jeff Goldblum about ten seconds to figure out the armada's vulnerability and fifteen more seconds to come up with a plan to attack it. D-Day had more moving parts than this alien invasion.
What do the aliens want? They want to drill to the Earth's core and extract it, thus destroying all life on Earth and plundering its resources. Why do they want to do this? To continue annihilating all life in the universe, I think. As I'm sure I've asked in previous reviews, what do these folks plan to do once they've wiped out every living thing in the universe? Won't they get bored when there are no more worlds to conquer? Since they are such aggressors by nature, do they then start attacking each other?
Will Smith is not back for the sequel, although his character's son Dylan (Usher) takes the reins as an ace fighter pilot. Liam Hemsworth is a fellow hotshot pilot who has a beef with Dylan and is engaged to Whitmore's daughter (Monroe). The reason the initial Independence Day was successful was because we actually cared for the people involved. The human stakes were high. In Resurgence, the characters are written by rote. They are as one-dimensional as the aliens. I could go over the various subplots, but who even cares?
If you never saw the first film or any alien invasion movie in the last 20 years, Independence Day: Resurgence may seem original and exciting. If you've come to see things blown up, then this is your movie. For me, this was an exercise in irrelevancy.
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