INDEPENDENCE DAY
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
***1/2 (out of ****)
First of all, there are several different things going on here, all separate but connected parts of the whole. There is "ID4: The Movie", "ID4: The Ride", and lest we forget, "ID4: The Hype And Cash Machine".
Unless you've been in a coma for the past few months or don't have cable and watch only PBS, you've been exposed to the unprecedented advertising campaign. When you heard the words "Independence Day", it was a safe bet they weren't talking about the holiday. Rarely has any film aroused such pre-release excitement.
So exciting that it generated over $94 million during its first 5 1/2 days of release. So exciting that dozens of theaters around the country were showing 24 hour screenings for the first few days: shows at 1:30am, 4:00am, 6:30am. So exciting that tickets were sold out hours before the shows to people camping in line with big coolers and sleeping bags. No matter how good the movie turned out to be, the hype was a work of art itself.
Somehow Fox even arranged for a massive power black-out up and down the west coast on opening night.
"ID4: The Ride"? It's phenomenal! Some films are more like amusement park thrillers than cinema and this is one of the best of that genre. Just take your seat, strap in and hold on. Monitor your cola consumption because the roller coaster doesn't provide many breaks. One of the marks of audience involvement is their relationship with their bladders: how casually they take their trips to the restroom. Here, people are __sprinting__ to and from the john so as not to miss anything.
There's enough stuff blown up and smashed and burned to a crisp to satisfy any summer action junkie. Jet fighters zooming here and there, alien death rays trashing all the world's major cities, massive devastation on a global scale! It's perfect! The best science fiction ride since the "Star Wars" films.
And then there's that pesky "ID4: The Movie" thing. There are a few problems. There's nothing new here. The producers have ripped off dozens of films ("Close Encounters", "Star Wars", "War Of The Worlds", "The Right Stuff", "Dr. Strangelove", "Jurassic Park", "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and on and on and on), word for word, scene for scene. During one dogfight scene with Will Smith being chased through canyons by an alien ship, I was sure I was about to hear "Use the Force, Will. Use the Force!"
I believe that kinder reviewers call these scenes "homages", but it's an odd film that can succeed with nothing but homages.
Fortunately "ID4" is that odd film. All of the pieces are well crafted into a quilt that, while it isn't original, sure does its job.
The casting is top-notch in most cases. The Fresh Prince is surprisingly refreshing as the wise-cracking jet pilot who becomes earth's last hope. Jeff Goldblum as the computer wiz who figures it all out works well with Judd Hirsch, his kibitzing dad. Randy Quaid, Harvey Fierstein and Harry Connick, Jr., among dozens of others, are grand. Bill Pullman as the Clintonesque president is something of a dead fish (or is that lame duck?), but then, we expect most of our politicians to behave that way.
See it. You'll have to forget about any attempt to look at the film intellectually, but let it possess your body and take over. You'll love it!
[This originally appeared in "The Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana, 7/11/96. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com]
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