User reviews

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.

I recently re-watched the first film and was surprised at how robust its shelf life is. Again, it is undeniably cheesy and jingoistic, but done suitably well, I can have a ball with any material. In "Independence Day: Resurgence", set and finally released 20 years after the events of the first film, the aliens get medieval on us with an even bigger mothership.

There's a lot of heroics here by many a character who do their equal part to stop this new alien menace, having already made a stuffed calzone of the Earth's crust comprising from London all the way to Singapore. There's also a refreshingly silly undertone which sets it apart from the grim and serious blockbusters of today, and with added Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch who return as the Levinsons, and "Star Trek" alumnus Brent Spiner as the eccentric Dr. Okun, Emmerich and his co-writers, including returning scribe Dean Devlin, certainly did not skimp out on the comic silliness.

Unfortunately, that is where the similarities end. The sins of sequelitis has been bestowed upon this sequel to his 1996 smash hit, and Emmerich is to blame, either for his laziness to phone it in out of frustration to fulfill the fans; or bucking in to studio demand to condense the film into a mere 2 hours. Sure, lots of things happen in the film, including stuff and cities going kablooey in high style, and high-tech aerial dogfights to give "Star Wars" a run for its money. Even Liam Hemsworth as the new hero Jake Morrison did not annoy me as much as I expected, though Hemsworth is still a far cry from Will Smith's "Elvis has left the building!" persona.

However, as slick as the modern CGI is, giving a sleeker look to the tech shown in the original film, it never quite gels together as a cohesive film - no momentum, no suspense, no catharsis when it does end. Bill Pullman's returning ex-President Thomas Whitmore is utterly wasted, as per his daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe, not doing her rep from "It Follows" any favours). It is not their fault; I feel that there is a lot of footage Emmerich was forced to excise by the Fox bigwigs to get more butts into cinema seats. Perhaps an extra half- hour of more cataclysmic destruction and character motives, but I may be asking for a bit too much at this point.

Things are very rushed indeed, with no payoff even when there's lots of characters doing their fair share to save the day. Goldblum and Hirsch, however, are still naturals, and they steal every scene they're in, and lift the movie up from near tediousness. Nevertheless, the special effects are fantastic, and are most certainly worth the price of admission alone.

It's kind of sad. This new one promotes global equality, with a female U.S. President (Sela Ward) celebrating world peace, and with everyone from across the globe giving it their all to kick E.T.'s ass. The action is fine and dandy without any of those annoying shaky-cam and quick-cut edits. And yet, the film suffers from awkward pacing, rushed dynamics, and especially a lack of cities exploding into fireballs. It even has sequel-teasing in the laziest manner possible in its final moments.

To quote Marvin the Martian, "Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be an Earth-Shattering Kaboom!"

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...

TL;DR: It was actually boring. There was a story here that had potential but it was let down by terrible acting, bad dialog, no story or character development at all and, ultimately, no soul to this one.

3 points for above average special effects, -7 for just an awful movie. Netflix this one.

Edition watched: 3D IMAX

In 1996's Independence Day, Bill Pullman's speech hit you emotionally somewhere. Even if that emotion was disgust, you had a reaction. All of Will Smith's one liners made you cringe or laugh. No matter how much you may deny it publicly, Randy Quaid's end put a lump in your throat the first time you saw it. There was soul to that movie, even though it was an ensemble cast, characters were developed, the story progressed and there were heroes you cheered for and aliens you despised.

None of that was present in 2016's Independence Day. All the new actors were either bad or terrible. I didn't care if the aliens won or lost. Not only were the new actors bad but some of the dialog they were forced to work with was just terrible. Jessie T. Usher's character has a few key lines that are supposed to hearken back to those emotional one liners from Will Smith in 1996, such as: "Welcome to Earth!". Yet Usher delivered those lines in such a deadpan, soulless way that made me wonder if he thought he was supposed to be playing an emotionless android. Then you have my favorite emotionless android actor Brent Spiner, who is someone I know to be a quality actor, yet the dialog and scenes with him were so bad I had to wonder for a second if all his previous work was done by a twin.

I could go on, but the acting and dialog were just parts of the problem. There was no character development at all. They simply tried to cram too much into this movie. From the constant pandering to a Mainland Chinese audience (unnecessary scenes that should have been used for any kind of plot or character development) to Vivica A. Fox's minuscule screen time, there was too much shoved into this 120 min movie which ended up making it a big mess that went nowhere. In the end, I formed no attachment to any of the new characters and was detached from old characters that I once cheered for.

The most damning thing though is, despite all the explosions and this alien invasion, there was no excitement. I was bored. There was a girl in front of me texting and using FB messenger and I found myself involuntarily lifting my 3D glasses and reading her text chain and messenger thread till I caught myself and put my glasses back on. Her inane chatter about how boring this movie was, her cat, the guy she was sitting next to and so forth were more interesting to me than the movie on the huge IMAX screen was.

As a huge fan of alien invasion movies, I walked out feeling like this was such a huge opportunity wasted. If you told me the basic story of this move yesterday, I would've been ecstatic to see a trilogy. Now I hope the 3rd one dies in production and they put the money to a Battle Los Angeles 2.

This movie has an amazing cast. Boy did I miss seeing Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Sela Ward, and so on! It begun okay. The script could have been better Kinda lost some interest towards the end. If you like the genre, like myself, it is worth watching. It has its classical lines, funny moments, the excitement (not the best but there). Just don't expect a masterpiece.

Just 2 hours of wasting your time with explosions and flashing lights. No coherent plot to be found anywhere.

Truly a disgrace to the original.

Also, the movie falls victim to the destructive trend of shoving female characters in roles which aren't really appropriate for them, only in the hopes that it appeals to the feminist audience.

Movie doesn't deserve more than 1 star.

Just seen this and was looking forward to it. It was big and dumb, but a bit of fun. Check in your brain at the door.

Everything is grander than last time, though it's also sillier and much more absurd; but what else is to be expected? No shortage of cheese, corniness, plot holes and continuity errors, but if you know what you're in for you shouldn't be disappointed.

Gotta say, I wasn't disappointed by any stretch and enjoyed it, but it doesn't improve on the original and is very, very cluttered. 7/10. Worth checking out if you don't take either your movies or yourself too seriously. Enjoy.

It has two good CGI scenes, which you can watch at home some months from now. The rest is garbage. The movie was cut in pieces that do not make any sense. But the complete edition is probably not better. It is BORING, and eminently stupid. Characters explain to the audience the basic plot five minutes after exposition time. It is an indictment of what film executives think about people. It is terrible. This movie needs to bomb, it needs to crash, it must be the point where the madness of the vapid blockbuster ends. Watch again any episode of "Game of Thrones" instead. Again, I repeat this point: it is not even fun in a dumb way. It treats you as a very slow person. You can feel the people responsible for this laughing at you. Make it stop. Don't go to the cinema.

This is one of those movies where the grown up audience knows after 5 minutes, that the target group is teenagers. Even in the middle of the movie's major crisis, the whole world pauses, as two young characters have to talk intimately, because it is just so important, for she's hot and he's so cute, so the less important end of our civilization will just have to wait.

Unlike many famous sci-fi movies, this movie is not true to science at all. If some young script writer thought that it would be "dope" for gravity to be "defeatable", then gravity is "defeatable", whatever that means. Small objects that are hidden can be monitored in detail by the good guys, while objects the size of a continent are completely undetectable. There are dozens of these examples where the movie makes no sense.

The humor in this movie has no finesse. Watching it is like being at dinner with the distant uncle who is not funny but keeps cracking jokes, though no one is really laughing but him.

Most of the time, the dialogues sound like a wacky parody, in the way Doc spoke with Martin in Back to the Future. They even copied the Doc character so directly, that there is an actual long haired, wacky old man in a lab coat talking in a nutty way while experimenting with sci-fi technology.

One thing does work, though, the computer graphics are impressive. Most of the time, the visual and audio effects really shine. It is just sad that an obviously huge gift budget was spent fully on the wrapping, and very, very little was spent on the gift inside.

It's entertaining and has better CGI than the part one. The acting is not so bad. I believe they could've thrown in an extra 15 to 30mins to build on the characters and story. This movie deserves more credit compared to all the negative reviews. And, its better than the Disney star wars trilogy and still intune with its original story. I do not know why people have to always compare movies with star wars. But I'm forced to due to one of the reviews.

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.

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.

The trouble with Independence Day: Resurgence is that the sequel was released after 20 years from the original film and really there was no need for it.

Minus Will Smith we have another alien threat 20 years later and earth is a different place after harnessing the alien technology they encountered.

From the first film we have Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner and Vivica Fox. I found Spiner's character irritating in the first film and here he is some kind of wacky Doc Brown character used mainly for comic relief.

Of the new cast Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Jesse T Usher are bland compared to say veterans like William Fichtner.

However despite a not very original plot and also some not very good CGI, I found the film cheesy fun and we get destruction of landmarks, mayhem and plenty of stupidity. At least we do not get Apple Macs interfacing with alien technology.

Twenty years have passed since Will Smith saved mankind from the alien threat. In those two decades, he decided against signing up for the sequel.

Which is the biggest problem with Independence Day: Resurgence. It's not more far-fetched or improbable than the first one. The special effects are just as good. The plot - the aliens return, shock horror - isn't much different and even the sometimes-cringy dialogue is back in spades.

Take Will Smith's on-screen presence out of a film like this, and despite plenty of returning faces from the original, you go from having a pretty sure-fire Hollywood blockbuster to something approaching a B movie.

Great action sequences, but not much else, to be honest. I was disappointed, as the original sets a high bar.

It is true that when you are young, you see movies like the original "ID4" from a different perspective, most often you judge them better than what they really are, and this undeniably is a fact of life. It holds true for most people. Yet, the original movie, even when judged by my 41 years old brain now, without considering the nostalgia factor, and even in all its cheesiness ... still manages to be far far superior from this absolute garbage!

This sequel really is a let down of epic proportions, and I felt like I wasted my money. It manages to be what the first movie totally wasn't ...and that can be summed up in one word: BORING. The bad guys ( the aliens ) are laughably stupid - even more than the first time ... the main characters could all be replaced by cardboard cutouts of people and it wouldn't make any difference. Even the CGI is bad... Avoid it at all costs.

I honestly don't know why this movie is getting bad reviews. If you go into this movie expecting it to be nominated for Oscars then yes, you will be disappointed with the plot. If you are looking forward to an entertaining sci-fi flick with excellent special effects, some sarcastic/funny lines, and a feel-good ending then you will be very happy with seeing it on the big screen.

The original Independence Day is one of my favorite movies. It is a cult classic which this is not, this is more typical of a sci-fi action movie. However, I loved how it expanded on the Independence Day world. It did a fantastic job of following up with past characters, explaining what the world has been up to, and how advancements have been made.

'INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

The sequel to the 1996 blockbuster sci-fi epic, about a massive alien invasion on Earth. This sequel takes place 20-years after the events of the first movie, when the alien invaders return with reinforcements. Many of the lead actors, from the original film, reprise their roles in this installment; including Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A. Fox, Brent Spiner and William Fichtner. Will Smith did not return, due to budget restraints (and Smith's self absorbed ego), but Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Jessie T. Usher, Travis Tope, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sela Ward joined the cast. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin returned as co-writers and co-producers of the flick, and Emmerich also (once again) directed this sequel. The film feels very similar to the original hit, but not quite as good.

The story picks up 20-years after the events of the first movie, when the United Nations has created a global defense system, called Earth Space Defense; which uses technology left behind by the defeated aliens. The aliens, of course, return to Earth, with an even bigger army of reinforcements; and an obsessive intent to take over the planet, and harvest it for their own. The central characters include David Levinson (Goldblum) and former U.S. president Thomas Whitmore (Pullman), once again, as well as Whitmore's daughter Patricia (Monroe), her boyfriend, ESD pilot Jake Morrison (Hemsworth), and Dylan Dubrow-Hiller (Usher); the son of Steven Hiller (Will Smith), who's now deceased.

The movie almost feels like a remake, rather than a sequel, but it is (somewhat) nostalgic seeing all of the characters again. The visuals are breathtaking, and the alien battles are cool. The film is almost as good as the original, except no Will Smith; Hemsworth definitely doesn't cut it (as a substitute). I remember when I saw the first movie, for the first time, and Will Smith was awesome in it; he was this really charismatic blockbuster star, just starting out. That's what this sequel is truly lacking.

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