Independence Day - Rigenerazione

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.

I don't like fireworks. Never did. I didn't want to waste my time watching them, so instead I decided to go and see "Independence Day: Resurgence." I've never regretted a decision more in my life.

Wow. You ever sit in a class room, and while the teacher is talking you just kind of zone out, and then about ten minutes later you jump back to reality and realize you're supposed to be paying attention? This happened to me multiple times during this movie. There were points where I actually forgot I was watching a film, and I'm not joking.

The tag line is "We had twenty years to prepare. So did they." But did they? Because after watching this movie I really couldn't tell. In fact, the aliens seemed weaker. Sure, they had a few force fields, a few clever bait and switches, but is that really all they came up with after twenty years? No wonder no one in the movie seemed afraid of them. People actually seemed pretty calm, even though the aliens wiped out London and China immediately after entering the Earth's atmosphere, just by flying over them. But that doesn't seem to bother anyone. The Earth is going to end in a few minutes? Didn't seem to matter to anybody in this film, because no one showed any emotion, and anger, any sadness, any grief, any hysteria, or any fear relating to this, and because of this, there was no sense of tension or fear for the viewer either. And this throws the tone off, also. I understand that these movies are supposed to be guilty pleasure fun, but at least have the tone be a little darker and a little more serious. This film was so lighthearted that it was actually off-putting.

This movie never really felt like it got started either. I mean, you get your giant CGI explosion fest when the alien ship first enters the Earth's atmosphere, with cities literally being torn out of the ground, but then the action never gets any bigger or better than that. My jaw literally dropped while watching the destruction during this scene, and I was ready for the action to intensify and grow. But it didn't. It got slower. They put the climax in the first 45 minutes of the movie, and then just spend the rest of the running time focusing on the falling action.

The action was also incoherent, with a million things happening on the screen at one time. It was hard to follow and looked very generic, and while it wasn't necessarily boring, it wasn't exciting in the slightest. And the CGI wasn't even that good either; there were points where watching this movie was like watching gameplay of an off-brand science fiction video game that was released in the middle of winter to appeal to the parents of small children who have no idea that the game they're buying is a cheap knockoff of a triple A title.

And speaking of CGI, the universe that was built in the film didn't seem believable at all. I didn't see an improved and more protected Earth that used futuristic alien technology to their advantage. I saw a paint bucket of CGI vomit thrown on the screen, with Roland Emmerich stuffing it down our throats while saying "Believe it! This is reality!"

I should've watched the fireworks instead.

The 1996 "Independence Day" is a funny and entertaining film of alien invasion despite the silly melodramatic subplots. But every fan of sci-fi genre certainly watched this movie.

The 2016 sequel raised great expectations in the fans. But it should have never been made. The story of an alien arrival to destroy the planet twenty years after the unsuccessful invasion is lame. The characters are silly and the dialogues and situations are ridiculous. Eleven guys writing the story and screenplay probably for morons so stupid most of the situations and jokes are. In the end, only the great CGI is worthwhile watching; the rest may be forgotten. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Independence Day: O Ressurgimento" ("Independence Day: Resurgence")

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.