INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Action / Sci-Fi

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Bill Pullman / Will Smith / Jeff Goldbloom

Plot

Humanity joins together in a desperate war for survival against alien invaders.

What I Liked

It has been almost two decades since “Independence Day” was released, yet its special effects do more than hold up, they can still match the effects of any film since for technical brilliance and emotional impact.  Certainly plenty of state-of-the-art (for the 90s) CGI and blue screen effects were used here, but the model effects are the real stars of the show.  Incredibly detailed replicas of the White House, the Empire State Building, and other well-known American landmarks look so convincing that I can still remember the shiver that reflexively ran through me as I watched these buildings so swiftly annihilated by the alien invaders.  I hadn’t felt a response in a movie like that since I saw the first on-screen dinosaur in “Jurassic Park,” and I’ve rarely felt it since.  The filmmakers may have taken an easy route by choosing to destroy such patriotic landmarks as a means of shocking its audience, but the model artists certainly didn’t have an easy time making such precision replicas.

A pure popcorn flick if there ever was one, “Independence Day” explodes with fun.  Its combination of special effects warfare and an alien invasion plot made it a mothership of sorts, off of which spun a whole generation of lesser sci-fi extravaganzas, including “War of the Worlds,” the Transformers trilogy, “Battle Los Angeles,” and “Battleship.”  As the first to raise the bar for the alien invasion subgenre to this level, “Independence Day” is something of a landmark in science fiction film history.  More importantly, it can still get the heart pounding viewing after viewing, year after year.

What I Didn’t Like

Let’s face it, this was never meant to be “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and it isn’t.  The characters are about as one-dimensional and stereotypical as any major motion picture this side of “Not Another Teen Movie.”  The personal relationships are given about as much thought and development as those in a porn film.  Indeed, had the effects not been so irresistibly good, this movie might have been confused for parody.  You’ve got virtually every stock character possible here, from the jive-talking black folks, to the argumentative old New York Jew, to the grizzled military officers, to the pretty-boy teen heart-throb, to the sniveling and image-obsessed politicians, to the overly-dramatic gay man whose best friend is his mother, to the cutesy innocent kids, to the alcoholic Nam vet, to the thoughtful warrior president, and the list goes on.  Basically, name a character and he or she is pure stock.  This is obviously done so that we can quickly relate to and root for the familiar archetypes and, sadly, it works more often than not.  I may have been disgusted at the lack of creativity shown by the scriptwriters, but that didn’t keep me from rooting for the heroes every step of the way.  It’s effective, even if it isn’t classy.

Speaking of lazy writing, someone tell me how every character seems to be chosen by fate to wind up in a room with all the others.  The marine’s stripper girlfriend just so happens to come across the first lady’s downed helicopter, while the same marine hangs out with the President himself at Area 51.  Then, the man who figures out the alien’s secret code just happens to be the estranged husband of the President’s political advisor.  Not to mention the crop dusting redneck who will eventually save the world coincidentally driving right up to the aforementioned marine in the middle of a vast desert.  It’s all so damned preposterous that if one takes too long to think about it, one misses the point: it’s just too much fun to bother caring about the planet-sized plot holes.

Most Memorable Scene

For all its amazing visuals, nothing else in this movie beats the punch-to-the-midsection impact of watching entire cities and their most memorable landmarks reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds.  Nothing on this level had ever been brought to the movie screen before.  Later disaster films like “Titanic,” "Armageddon," “The Day After Tomorrow,” “War of the Worlds,” and “2012” may have dulled the sensation somewhat by replicating (let’s face it, ripping off) similar sights and desensitizing the audience.  But in 1996 these moments were as close to unbelievable as movie-making got and they still deliver the goods even to this day.  After twenty years, most effects-based action films look hokey and dated; with “Independence Day,” so far, so good.

My Rating: 4 out of 5