Independence Day: Resurgence review
Roland Emmerich is a weird guy. In fact he’s probably one of the downright strangest directors working today. His movie’s usually come in two flavors; giant, bombastic, CGI heavy summer blockbuster’s such as Independence Day, or weirdly political period dramas such as last year’s Stonewall or 2011’s Anonymous. (Both of which I actually haven’t seen yet so I can’t comment on the quality of those particular movies.) Usually he’ll also make mixtures of the two, such as White House Down or 2012. What makes him such an entertaining filmmaker, for me anyway, is that he also appears to have no concept of subtlety or nuance in storytelling; or more likely he does and he just doesn’t care for it. If you’ll recall, the plot of White House Down was essentially a look at the Obama administration and modern day America by way of having the White House be put under siege by all the various political groups that represent everything wrong with modern day America. This kind of filmmaking doesn’t usually lead to the most well made or intelligent products, but what they do lead to is movies that end up being WAAAAY more fun then they have any right to be. It also helps that Roland Emmerich does actually have a few strong areas. He’s got a habit of usually casting pretty charismatic actors, he can direct big, destructive set-pieces like a pro, and no matter how corny his scripts are, he can still tap into an audience’s innate sense of patriotism and pride in a way few directors can. He’s generally got good intentions as a filmmaker too. I get the sense he loves making movie’s and has a lot of fun with them, and whenever possible wants to use his films to promote theme’s of unity that make his movie’s a lot harder to dislike.
So anyway, here’s Independence Day: Resurgence! Possibly the most Roland-ey of Roland Emmerich movies yet! Let’s go down the checklist shall we?
Way too many characters? Check:
At least one or more characters are awkward comic-relief? Triple Check:
Large FX shot of a tidal wave? Check:
Large FX pan out shot of either a something crashing into a city or a city falling into the ocean? Check:
Kids? We got a whole bus full:
Someone needs to save the dog? Check:
The American Flag? Check:
The first half of Independence Day: Resurgence is honestly pretty rocky. It seems like we’re flying right through and re-doing most of the beats from the original way too fast, while setting up plot-points that will be important later in the movie, while also introducing new our new characters, while ALSO reintroducing a good deal of the cast from the original who don’t really seem to have much of a point for being here except to remind you of who their characters are. It’s honestly really clunky, even by Roland Emmerich standards, and if you wanted to say this is almost the “Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen” of the Independence Day franchise, I don’t think I could say that’s an unfair comparison. Make no mistake, I’m not really sure I can call Independence Day: Resurgence a “good” movie. It’s got a lot of the typical problems of a 21st Century blockbuster. Absolutely non of the characters are on screen long enough to develop any sort of interesting character arc, mainly due to the pacing moving at breakneck speed. Most of the story or characters won’t make sense if you haven’t seen the original. There’s a clear attempt to pander to the Chinese market by including new Asian characters who really don’t add too much to the story. There’s no sense of urgency or weight to any of the destruction happening onscreen; I mean if it only took everyone 20 years to rebuild all the destruction from the first movie, why should we? And the comic relief isn’t AS bad as say, any of the Transformers movies, but it’s still not very funny. I was kinda concerned for a minute when halfway through I thought the movie was gonna end; in which case my reaction would’ve been, “Well at least this was short.” But then Resurgence enters its second act and things got a lot more interesting for me. I won’t spoil how, but the movie throws in a few nice curveballs that leads into a terrifically fun finale and a hilariously sequel bait heavy ending that would make most Marvel movies blush. It also helps that even in the rocky first act there’s still some surprisingly good stuff that kept me invested in what was happening. Jeff Goldblum isn’t phoning it in as some actors tend to do in these situations. He’s still doing a pretty good job and actually seems like he doesn’t mind being here. Another surprisingly good screen presence is Liam Hemsworth. I had no idea this kid could actually act, seeing as how my only experience with him is from the Hunger Games movies where he’s playing one of the most dead-inside and least fun characters in all of fiction. Turns out he can actually be really charming and funny if you give him a fun character and room to play around. Sadly I can’t really say the same about Jesse T. Usher, who seems like an okay actor who could’ve been a solid emotional center, had this movie not had eight or so other characters it felt it needed to devote time too. Also, this probably goes without saying, but if you have a movie that’s at least 60% CGI, don’t expect it to look very convincing.
Usually this is the kind of movie that would give me a headache, but honestly, even most of the bad stuff I pointed out here didn’t annoy me as much as it does in other movies. I realize this definitely won’t stay true for everyone. I’m sure their are definitely people who will think this is trash, and they might not be wrong. For now though, I’m down for some well-intentioned, mindless, summer blockbuster fun, and this movie has it in spades. If I had to compare it too anything that’s come out recently, I’d say it lands somewhere in the relm of Jurassic World and Furious 7. Not great, but fun.
The Media Fire gives this movie 6.7/10
