Not Quite Getting the Band Back Together

Conditions: Rain with a chance of sunshine

Film Review: Independence Day: Resurgence

Twenty years ago ID4 was unleashed on theaters around the world and was quickly absorbed into the zeitgeist.  Giant hovering alien ships, tentacled aliens, uploading viruses, geeky back and forth dialogs, Will Smith being Will Smith, none of it was new or even unique, but it was all stitched together with such sheer professionalism and momentum, and given a solid plot outline and great story beats, it really is a rollicking good adventure yarn, a crowd pleaser even today.  Perhaps unfairly, I decided to check out the old one again days before seeing the new one.  I mean, a sequel should be able to stand up to watching the previous one directly beforehand, but it can sometimes overshadow things.  Like testing a new sweater by first putting on a comfy old one.

So we begin on the moon, where mankind has been busy.  Using the left behind alien technology we have united all the surviving countries and setup a defensive lunar base, and another one in orbit around the earth itself.  This gives us a chance to introduce the fighter pilot new kids who will have a storyline throughout the film.  Suddenly, a giant ship appears.  The Americans, unsurprisingly still in charge of our new world order, waste no time dilly-dallying and blast it, causing it to crash into a moon crater.  So it's up to Jeff Goldblum to tear himself away from studying a crashed alien ship in Africa that a warlord has been keeping to himself, and get himself to the moon to see what's what, where he finds a mysterious spherical object.

This gives him an excellent perspective to take in the first big action setpeice of the film, where an actual giant Alien ship appears, this time about a third the size of the earth itself.  It casually knocks out the moon defense, and the orbital satellites, before "landing" on the planet, causing remarkable levels of death and destruction.  Onboard is an Alien Queen - yes, the franchise is still gobbling up ideas from other classic films, and she is pissed.  Goldblum is able to get the sphere to Area 51 in time for Bret Spiner to wake up from his coma and start spouting nonsense (a lot of the surviving characters are slightly damaged from their psychic conversations with aliens in the first film)

So while the Aliens start destroying things and homing in on the sphere location, the humans start getting it to work.  Turns out there's another type of Alien that these aliens are afraid of, and this sphere is a A.I construct with all their technology in it.  This will give the humans a chance to take the fight out to the bad aliens on their turf, but that will have to wait to the next film, which likely isn't going to happen considering how badly this thing has performed.  Basically, it just doesn't feel right.  I mean, the pieces are there, and the film looks great, but somehow the mesh, the synergy, the magic of that first film just isn't here.  Maybe it is the missing Will Smith factor, maybe it's that the established actors just aren't working with enough, maybe it's because the kids keep sucking the oxygen out of the plot, I don't know.  It's probably all of those things, and more.  ID4 came at just the right moment, when the world wanted that kind of film.  Now in 2016, I don't know, it's different. Forget aliens and space travel, simply the idea of world wide death and destruction causing us to pull together and work together seems more and more like a stupid fantasy  Maybe we're all just too cynical to enjoy this kind of thing anymore.  Two orbital cannons out of five.


- peace out