Independence Day: Resurgence – Suspend disbelief... and enjoy (most of it)

I remember watching the original ‘Independence Day’ back in 1996.  I had never looked forward to a film so much since ‘Return of the Jedi.’ It was the mid-nineties, ‘The X-Files’ was at its peak and everyone was asking the question: What if aliens really DID exist?  The trailers looked so cool – no one had ever seen such amazing special effects and the clips of fighter jets involved in dogfights against UFOs ignited the fanboy in all of us.  I left the cinema VERY let-down.
The dogfights were minimal, the story was overly-cheesy, there were major/ridiculous plotholes (remember the Apple computer taking down an alien ship?) and the whole thing just seemed like one big disappointment.  And yet it was one of the most successful movies ever made (Box Office figures, anyway), yet no sequel ever came.  Now, twenty years later, we have another story in the franchise.  And, if you’ve been keeping your eye on sequels which come a long time after the original, you’ll know how they normally turn out.

I’d read a lot of reviews before I saw the film and expected the worst.  However, about an hour in and I was wondering where all the hatred came from.  Don’t get me wrong, ID4 (2) is no classic, but it never seemed quite as bad as some people made out.  I’d go as far as to say that the first half of the film is actually pretty tense as the build up to the new alien attack cranks up the tension.  It did descend a little once they arrived and the lasers started firing as you kind of know who’s never going to get killed and who’s just there to be offed at the earliest opportunity.

Although, what I found its biggest let-down to be is its humour.  Things roll along quite nicely until something that’s supposed to be funny crops up and just brings the serious tone down.  Okay, some humour in a serious film is nice if done well, but it felt like every action scene had to have a ‘one-liner’ tacked on to the end.  Plus some sub plots concerning secondary characters could probably be removed completely to make the film a little shorter (Jeff Goldblum’s dad for a start – quite unnecessary).

The set pieces are pretty good with plenty of new destruction and we do get to see jets using alien technology fight the alien aggressors.  Naturally, our plucky survivors need to come up with something a little better than just repeatedly shooting the new spaceships and – this time – it doesn’t involve Apple (thank goodness!).  However, if the aliens really wanted to take over the Earth then they don’t need to repeatedly destroy our major cities killing most of our population.  They only really need to kill about seven pertinent humans who all just so happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right skill-sets to just so happen to foil these intergalactic nasties’ plans.  In other words – coincidence seems to play a big part in the humans’ plans.

You probably already know by now that Will Smith chose not to return.  Whether you feel that him choosing ‘Suicide Squad’ over this was a better choice is up to you.  Personally, I thought the film would have benefited from his inclusion over some of the lesser characters we ended up with.

So, overall, I enjoyed a lot of what was on offer here.  It’s big dumb fun and there is enjoyment here if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief long enough.  It’s a pity that the humour and annoyingly included secondary characters kept spoiling the mood.  Plus do the special effects look so bad during the last five minutes during the scenes in the desert – seriously, it’s obvious the actors are just up against a blue screen.  The rest of the film was all right (FX-wise)!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that