Independence Day Resurgence

Year: 2016

Genre: Science Fiction

I remember seeing the trailer for Independence Day back in the mid 90's, and staring in awe at the momentous scene where the alien ship slowly approached Will Smith and Vivica Fox. At the time, CGI was in it's early days, and this was something seen on a scale audiences had yet to become accustomed to. The film went on to win an Academy Award for best visual effects, become the highest grossing film of 1996 taking $817 million dollars worldwide, and to this day stands as the fifty fifth highest grossing film of all time. 

Resisting studio pressures to make a sequel, German director Roland Emmerich went on to become Hollywood's man to trust when it came to the big screen disaster movies. As CGI became more and more prevalent on the in cinemas, audiences were given Godzilla in 1998, The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, and most recently, Channing Tatum's attempt at being Bruce Willis in 2013's White House Down . Twenty years after the first film was released, and Emmerich has decided to bow down to studio (and financial pressures) to give the world a sequel to his 1996 Summer blockbuster. 

The story very much follows exactly the same path as the original. It's been twenty years since the aliens first tried to destroy civilisation, and since we defeated them, we've incorporated a lot of their technology into our own. You'll see missile defence systems on the moon, Star Trek-esque shuttle crafts, weapons that fire lasers like in Star Wars, and computer technology that far exceeds anything you would see on earth had the aliens not visited in 1996. This would be great if we had paid to watch a sequel to Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, but it means that from the outset, the sense of vunerability that that you felt throughout the original from ordinary folk overcoming such an overpowering force is immediately lost. My other half tended to disagree with me on this point, but for me, it was bone of contention. 

If you cast your mind back to my review of Jurassic World, you'll remember that one of the big problems with that film was the way the Colin Trevorrow had given an emphasis to making everything bigger, louder, and generally more brash whilst putting character development on the back burner. This is sadly also the problem with Resurgence. There is now only one alien spaceship that invades the earth, but it's size quite frankly verges on the utterly ridiculous (at one point in the film it's quoted as being 3000 miles in diameter) The aerial space battles make up for almost 75% of the film itself, with absolutely no cooling down periods to pad them out like in the original. Also, you can't help but think that before he sat sat down to write his screenplay, Nicolas Wright must have watched James Cameron's Aliens a couple of times, the reason for which I won't give away for fear of revealing a spoiler. 

Most of the original cast return, but young age of the new leads makes the film feel like it's intentionally handing over the reigns to make way for Independence Day 3 (already registered on the IMDB). Bill Pullman is in there as the ex-president (although he does seemed to have aged considerably worse than everyone else. Brent Spiner returns as the head techie in Area 51 (and manages to shoe horn in a blink or you'll miss it Star Trek Easter Egg).  Sadly, Will Smith's absence leave a huge gap, and the humorous elements he gave the audience in first film between the dog fights and destruction are pretty much non existent in Resurgence. The stand out character is Goldblum's David Levinson, pretty much upstaging everyone else on screen with the style of acting he bought to so many other of his famous roles. The young cast of support roles which includes Thor's younger brother Liam Hemsworth, and Maika Monroe (Jay from It Follows) do a decent enough job with a script isn't overly cheesy considering how Edam laden the plot of the film itself is. 

The biggest problem with Resurgence is that is suffers with the same issues so many other Summer blockbusters of recent have also done. Way way too much CGI, way too much green screen, no new ideas, very little character development, just making everything larger, louder, and lots more of it. By no means is it a bad film, you just don't walk out enjoying it as much as you did the original. I get that if something ain't broke, you shouldn't attempt to fix it, but it would be nice if for once, they could bring something new to the table, whilst maintaining what made the original as special and timeless as it originally was. 

Go and see it. It needs to be seen on the big screen. It's ok, just not brilliant.

3.5 stars