Goldblum’s long overdue return to the multiplexes doesn’t give him anything amusing to do, which is a criminal waste of an actor it’s always good to see. There are instances when you Whitmore gets close to making another grandiose speech, but the script shies away from having to top his signature “we will not go quietly into the night” moment, before just letting his character bow out in a hugely disappointing manner. You can also feel the writers struggling to give IDR the same sense of tongue-in-cheek fun its predecessor had, because things have moved on since the ’90s in popular entertainment. Okun woke up from his coma and suffered no debilitating effects from being bed-ridden two decades… but definite concerns set in when the tide turned because of a benevolent alien ball, oh yes. The moment I really began to worry is when Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner) somehow survived and has been in a coma ever since - but once the story has to progress beyond the ‘setup’, IDR quickly loses its way. There are a few nice visuals, and it’s interesting to see what everyone’s up to - David Levinson’s (Goldblum) in charge of Earth’s space defences, President Whitmore’s (Pullman) grown a beard and gone mad, Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch) has written a book about his experiences, Dr. The problem with IDR is that it seems to have been made because Emmerich loved the idea of returning to this universe and exploring the aftermath of a narrow victory over extra-terrestrials, but everything else falls by the wayside. Humour is no longer being used as relief from tragedy, it’s become sarcastic commentary. It’s a bit odd to find that IDR goes one step further by having the quips happen during its own mass-destruction sequences - mainly with trailer-ready funnies like “they like to get the landmarks”, as the city of Dubai falls from the London sky, and we pretty much brush it off. ID4 capped its initial alien attack, where millions of people died around the world, with Will Smith making quips about his anxiousness to get up there and “whup E.T’s ass”, and oh how we laughed. We’ve had two decades to become jaded from seeing cities getting trashed (many such examples coming from Emmerich himself in other movies), and it’s also worth noting that it’s less of an easy buzz following 9/11. This time, it’s a case of seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar surroundings, which creates distance - and the planet-wide destruction is no longer the movie’s raison d’etre. Part of the excitement surrounding ID4 was the promise of seeing, in a semi-realistic depiction, how we’d cope against an alien invasion - with the aide of a wise-cracking Will Smith, befuddled Jeff Goldblum, a few dozen F-15s, and Bill Pullman’s public speaking talent. However, the story’s alternate timeline wheeze means there’s greater disconnect for audiences. ID:R’s setup isn’t half bad, really, and it’s fun to see a type of science fiction few other movies bother to make - as it’s easier to just set things in “the future”, than reimagine our own present. The so-called War of ’96 resulted in the people of Earth uniting as one, to create a utopia where discarded alien technology has been reverse-engineered to harness anti-gravity engines and defensive weapons. The good news is there’s actually a sound basis for a sequel, as it takes place 20 years later in an alternate timeline. I don’t think ID4 (as it was confusingly marketed) has withstood the test of time, but in terms of pure spectacle it was a memorable trip to the multiplex.Ī sequel always felt like a financial no-brainer, but creatively unlikely, so news Emmerich was making Independence Day: Resurgence (hereafter IDR) caused raises eyebrows. It was War of the Worlds for the Jurassic Park age, with Hollywood’s fancy new tool of computer-generated imagery helping astonish moviegoers with greater verisimilitude. In the summer of 1996, German director Roland Emmerich scored a career-defining hit with Independence Day, helped by the fact audiences weren’t yet accustomed to photorealistic scenes of famous landmarks getting destroyed (the shot of the White House zapped by an alien death ray becoming a piece of pop culture iconography). How did the Empire State Building survive the first movie?
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