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Independence Day: Resurgence
STARRING: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman
DIRECTOR: Roland Emmerich
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: PG-13
129 mins
Considering I’m a self-professed sci-fi nerd and the genre is my favourite, it seems almost criminal to admit that I’ve never seen the first Independence Day.
To be fair, I was only four when the original came out, but that doesn’t seem to placate the indignity of my friends and family, who treat this revelation with the same horror as if I’d just put their cat through a washing-machine cycle.
However, if the original was just as fun and popcorn-munchingly thrilling as this (and let’s face it, it’s the original so that’s probably a given), I need to hunt down a copy as soon as possible.
If you want a basic plot summary: 20 years later, the aliens are back. Stronger, and in greater numbers. It’s a little bit more sophisticated than that (although not by much, this is firmly in the ‘big and dumb’ category rather than the ‘subtle and sophisticated’).
Thomas J. Whitmore (Pullman), haunted by visions and his well-trod ‘we won’t go quietly into the night’ speech that’s become the series’ calling card, believes the aliens are returning.
Inevitably, they do, and the focus switches to the latest cocky hotshot wanting to prove himself. Sadly, it’s not Will Smith this time, but Liam Hemsworth plays the reckless-but-talented Jake Morrison very well. He’s a renegade pilot in the Earth Space Defence (sounds familiar), a special programme full of good-looking Top Gun extras (just to emphasise the similarity) skilled at dogfighting and wielding advanced alien weaponry mastered since the last attack.
There’s a slew of background characters too. Too many, really, considering they all get shafted in terms of screen time, but most prominent is the wonderful Jeff Goldblum who plays someone … I think he’s called David … but really he just plays Jeff Goldblum.
When it boils down to it though, the movie really isn’t about the characters. Once the mass devastation starts, on July 4, of course, then all focus is switched to motherships crushing cities, tidal waves, floods, fires, and in the most awesome sequence, a giant gravity bomb that flings the entire population of an average-sized urban settlement into the air.
For most of the film, aside from brief interludes to further the plot or offer a last-ditch attempt to care about the side characters, Resurgence bathes in its excesses, and there’s a certain joy mined from watching overly-cocky Yanks failing to stop the determined alien force time and time again.
The visuals are hugely impressive too, and the world is believable. This is an Earth where alien technology is seamlessly interwoven with man-made efforts, and when the war starts, for a while we think that this is a very plausible occurrence.
The plot, in the meantime, gets gradually more implausible as a floating orb MacGuffin comes into play.
This isn’t a film for fans wanting two hours of deep thematic reasoning and important questions about extra-terrestrial life, but there are so many of those sorts of films these days that for once it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy something ridiculously fun. Frequent moments of humour and humanity should make it easier for more intellectual audiences to swallow, regardless.
Overall, Independence Day: Resurgence is packed so full of cheese, explosions and too-convenient plot-twists it could sink a (mother)ship; yet it all adds up to a fun, old-fashioned disaster pic, made with such confidence and heart that there’s no time to feel guilty for enjoying the rip-roaringly thrilling ride.
Showing in: Novo Cinemas, Cineco, Seef, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Al Jazira
Rating: 4/5
