INDEPENDENCE DAY
Year Of Release : 1996
Director : Roland Emmerich
Genre : Science - Fiction
Rating : **1/2
Dr Evil : ''Well actually, that was just footage from the movie 'Independence Day', but the real laser would be a lot like that. Yeah, scary''
I have always been a fan of German director Roland Emmerich. While his career hasn't been replete with glowing critical reviews, I have always enjoyed the carefree way in which he will gladly destroy the planet and with his 2 movies 'The Day After Tomorrow' and '2012' , his work have proven to be the natural extension of the entertaining disaster flicks of the 1970's such as 'Earthquake', 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'The Towering Inferno'. His movies may not be examples of great works of cinema, but I have always found them to be fun escapist 'popcorn' movies which are certainly guilty pleasures for me. However, some of his movies definitely fall below par and 'Independence Day' is one of them. With a generic setup, notoriously cheesy dialogue and a very stilted and awkward climax, 'Independence Day' lacks any of the tactility and drive that would make Emmerich's later movies so entertaining. But for scenes of destruction and human annihilation, 'Independence Day' pretty much knocks it out of the park.
Just outside the atmosphere of Earth, a giant monolithic spaceship hovers and releases 35 smaller crafts that place themselves over the major cities of the world. When mankind gathers to admire the spaceships, the aliens unleash a deadly ray gun that obliterates the cities and kills every human caught in it's path. It is up to the American army and The President of the USA to try and destroy the spaceships before the planet is totally devastated and the aliens take over the world.
This scenario is of course very routine for a science - fiction movie, and unfortunately, 'Independence Day' doesn't add anything new to the genre. While the special effects are amazing and the destruction scenes are fantastic, the actual narrative and conclusion to the movie is very disappointing. This is unfortunate because the first 45 minutes or so are genuinely intense and highly entertaining with the shots of the slow - moving spaceships floating over the major cities of the globe that create a genuine sense of scale and hyptonising fascination. These gigantic ships have an amazing sense of awe about them but when they unleash their deadly power, they become an evil, seemingly unstoppable threat that seems poised to destroy all of humanity. Some elements of 'Independence Day' have those moments of real amazement, such as the extraordinary shots of The White House and The Empire State Building being evaporated by the death ray, but after the first few scenes of the devastation of the icons of the world, 'Independence Day' becomes very predictable, slow and rather tedious. Full of inane dialogue and even worse direction, the film completely flips in tone and becomes a gung-ho, overly patriotic farce that lacks any of the fun or exhilaration of it's prelude. Little imagination goes into the design of the aliens and the spaceships and it is only the crispness of the special effects that separate 'Independence Day' from any rubbish 1950's B - movie.
The cast are generally quite good with Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman giving good performances in the face of very silly material; especially Goldblum, who has seemed to have cornered the market for geeky scientists in movies, from 'The Fly' and 'Jurassic Park' to the very, very, very bad 'Cats & Dogs'. Will Smith also provides a reliably good lead role by playing the same sarky and sassy character as he does in every other single movie he stars in and Robert Loggia is menacingly convincing as an army colonel. Unfortunately, the cast can't help but look amateurish in the face of such badly scripted and poorly staged melodramatic scenes.
Overall, 'Independence Day' is a highly flawed film, with many scenes that seem profunctory at best. However, the first 45 minutes are thrilling and save the movie from being a total bore. Unfortunately 'Independence Day' is over 2 hours long, so by the half way point, you may get desensitized to the onslaught of loud action. To be honest, I wouldn't blame you at all. Of course, the movie certainly isn't as bad as some of Emmerich's other films such as 'Godzilla' or '10,000 BC', but it is a right mess of a motion picture.
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