Independence Day: Wiederkehr

I was looking very much forward to it, since I'm a fan of the original (nostalgia based). 15 minutes into the movie I just knew it was going to be bad.

Made by the same director that made the movie 2012, it has the same terrible drama and completely transparent storyline. I'm not even sure if there even is a storyline to this movie.

The worst part, aside from all the crying scenes based upon long distance relationships, unresolved father issues and what not, was in fact that the aliens are more primitive than us.

You would think that a race with such insane technology have evolved beyond petty and shortsighted impulse driven emotions. It's when you realize that the Queen of the aliens suddenly gets a personal vendetta against a yellow school bus while fighter planes are bombarding her, that the manuscript was written in half an hour in a coffee shop.

I really went into this with open eyes and was completely set for loving it, but no. The movie is just pure garbage. I'm sorry...

They made the first film again, with a few more and bigger bangs, unoriginal boring aliens you've seen the like of so many times before and an even more cheesy script than the first movie. Most of the cast just went through the motions, many of the younger ones ought to be seeking other forms of employment. The CGI was epic in scale but not in originality,the story hackneyed and clichéd. OK it's not a film to be taken with any sort of seriousness, but this was just poor.

On the opening afternoon there were just 5 of us in a 200 seat theatre - but it was a dull day and I guess most people were out voting in the EU referendum (or working!), but maybe the mediocre press reviews had an effect.

They shouldn't bother to resurrect the aliens unless they can bring something a bit more original to the screen. I wish I'd have joined the rest of the family in the screen next door for The Jungle Book rehash, which they said was very good.

Twenty years ago, director Roland Emmerich put on screen an alien-invasion disaster feature with moments so iconic & jaw-dropping that viewers n critics alike were left dazzled by the sheer scale & size of its ambition. Independence Day was a watershed event for its genre and its influence on both disaster films & blockbuster filmmaking cannot be downplayed.

Independence Day was in every way a self-contained film. It never needed a sequel and its legacy was well-preserved for years to come. That was until Emmerich decided to put a dent on it, which is exactly what he does with Independence Day: Resurgence. A strong contender for the absolute worst film of 2016, this sequel is as needless & cringeworthy as movies can get.

Set 20 years after the events of the first film, Independence Day: Resurgence presents Earth to be a much more peaceful & united place than ever before. There's higher transparency in international cooperation and the defence system has benefited greatly by reverse-engineering the technology of the ruined alien spacecrafts. But when the aliens return with an even deadlier threat, mankind is put to test again.

Co-written & directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day: Resurgence is a facepalm-inducing garbage from start to finish. Everything that made its predecessor an instant classic is discarded in this sequel. What the writers have done with returning characters is downright embarrassing, while the new additions are even worse. There is neither any sense of logic in what transpires on screen nor any uniformity in its plot progression.

All of Roland Emmerich's trademarks make its way into the final print, be it the utter disregard for science or logic, suffocating levels of visual effects, corny characters, nonsensical set of events, and unprecedented demonstration of global catastrophe. The CGI excess is really overpowering in every sense of the word, and with all the stupidity that takes place over the course of its runtime, there is nothing redeemable about this sequel.

Coming to the performances, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner & Vivica A. Fox reprise their respective characters while the new additions include Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, Charlotte Gainsbourg & a few more unknowns, and the terrible work they put up on screen is only an extension of their awfully-written characters. In fact, the only one to really admire here is Will Smith, who decided to not return this time.

On an overall scale, Independence Day: Resurgence proves that Roland Emmerich is never so bad at filmmaking that he can't get any worse. Undeniably amongst the worst blockbusters to surface on silver screen, it is a horribly directed, shoddily scripted & poorly performed picture made even worse by its wooden characters, terrible dialogues & lame attempts at humour and sort of makes you wish that the aliens had won the last time. In a sentence, Independence Day: Resurgence is an insult to human intelligence.

Not as bad as many say but yea set your sights low! I loved the original. This one was missing some of the great acting but I still liked the action and Sci Fi. Goldblum is hard to dislike in any movie. He helps save this from a total bomb. I bought a cheap copy on Ebay and will keep it avail for a double feature come 4th each year.

I think I know why so many didn't like the latest Independence Day-movie. As most of us know, our feelings and opinions about a movie weighs mostly on how it ends. If it's a great movie with a bad ending, you'll leave the cinema or sit in your sofa feeling disappointed and then you'll attribute that feeling to the entire movie.

I enjoyed the movie, it captured the tone of the first one very well - very cheesy, action packed and humorous. The two biggest problems however was the duration and ending. Without giving anything away, it ends too abruptly. I get the idea, but ending a movie like that almost never works, especially not when the original movie ended the way it did: with a spectacular burning debris rain. This just... ends.

The other problem I had with it was that they tried to cram in too much in just two hours. The first one had a perfect pacing, almost just as much sh*t happening as it was in this one. But the fact that it was a whole 30-minutes shorter made half the movie seem rushed, especially the second half. Which is too bad because it had potential to be just as good as the original. Other than that, it was pretty spot on. I especially enjoy the fact that it doesn't hold off any cheese, like the trend we've seen in most of our latest sci-fi epics. Everything's so dark and gritty nowadays and it's nice to see this movie take a step backwards towards what made the original movie so special.

I give it a 6/10. Good, enjoyable popcorn flick. Could be better, but could've been a hell of a lot worse.