Patricia is concerned that Dylan's contentious relationship with fellow pilot Jake (Maika Monroe), now an appealing and very smart young woman. Lanford's speech writer is a former denizen of the White House, Whitmore's daughter While Steven Hiller isn't around any longer, his stepson Dylan (Jessie Usher) is poised to follow in his heroic footsteps, hob nobbing with theĪnd mighty like President Elizabeth Lanford (Sela Ward). Wake of that development, and he still has a lovably bantering relationship with his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) who like any good Jew has retired toįlorida. Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner) isĮxperiencing, since he's basically a brainwave flatline as a coma patient? David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) has assumed some of Okun's duties in the Whitmore may not be president any more, but he's still experiencing nightmares. Independence Day: Resurgence tends to falter. However, it's obvious that the pair (reunited for this film) have granderĪmbitions to forge another film that somehow doesn't lose its humanity in the wake of an alien invasion (no pun intended), and it's here that Those who are way too young to remember what "July 4, 1996" means. Gusto in SFX overkill (which they do, just not "merely"), Independence Day: Resurgence might have satisfied both fans of the first film Virtually) when Steven Hiller (Will Smith) laid down some serious butt kicking on one particular alien. Lump in their throat over the family dynamics of President Whitmore (Bill Pullman), and few similarly were able to keep from cheering (if only Few who watched the first film back in the day were able to
Unique in the annals of overblown "alien invasion" movies: it had heart. Resurgence provides occasional thrills, but is so concerned with ticking off predictable plot points that it forgets what made the first film kind In weird subplots that seem like distant echoes of films like Top Gun.įilled with the sort of CGI wonderment that has become de rigeur in today's science fiction cinematic universe, Independence Day: The overstuffed screenplay repeatedly references the first film while also Which can look surprisingly cheap at times and which never builds to anything like the emotional fervor that made the first film so memorable.įilm tries to weave together a navigable story built out of some of the rubble left after the alien incursion in the first film, bringing back a bevy ofĬharacters from that enterprise while also introducing a gaggle of newcomers (in what is assumed to be an attempt to craft a foundation for aįranchise, even if the next installment doesn't appear until 2036). This is one of those special effects spectaculars that seemingly has everything money can buy, and Through the ins and outs of this follow up. Theatrically, some wag might suggest that Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin needed twenty one years (at a minimum) to really think Response Independence Day: Resurgence received from both critics and (at least some) audience members when it was released The tagline for Independence Day: Resurgence states "We had twenty years to prepare," and the same of course might be said for thisĬreative crew, who took two decades (more or less, not counting pre-production, of course) to craft a sequel to 1996's blockbuster extravaganza Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 20, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence Blu-ray Review