INDEPENDENCE DAY
A film review by Paul-Michael Agapow
Copyright 1997 Paul-Michael Agapow
Plot synopsis: (are you trying to tell me you don't know?) Slimy and easily detestable aliens aliens come to Earth and kill a lot of extras. After the main characters have finish vacillating, they kick alien butt. Fin.
In case you're wondering, I was one of two people on the planet who didn't see "In-duh-pendence Day" at the cinema in 1996. The other was Xing!-Kao!, a Bushman who was lost in the wilds of the Serengetti for most of the year. Having just seen the aforementioned film on laserdisc, and given it's about to appear on video, and as Xing! has just made his way back to civilisation, it seems appropriate to reflect on the worth of "In-duh-pendence Day".
To pre-empt myself with the verdict, "In-duh-pendence Day" is nothing special. It is not, as some have proclaimed, "the worst movie ever made", nor is is quite worthy of the moniker "IQ4". What it is, is a minor and humourless SF piece with delusions of grandeur, hyped beyond all reason and lumbered with some very unsubtle and nasty subtexts.
It's pointless to recount the many plot holes - other have done so thoroughly. But we are not just talking about outrageous contrivances or coincidences (i.e. after the attack the USA is apparently only populated by a dozen characters who can't help but trip over each other) or handwaving (i.e. the famous Mac-compatible alien mothership, obviously using AOCE), but serious logical problems. (What is powering the captured alien scoutship at the end? Why do the aliens need to broadcast a countdown? Don't they have clocks? How does two characters escape from a panicked New York and get to Washington in 6 hours? The military are short on pilots for their aircraft, which goes against all logic and evidence.) The scriptwriters obviously did not care or assumed the audience wouldn't.
It is also too simple to blame Roland Emmerich. He is not a great director but "Universal Soldier" and "Stargate" at least have parts that work, even work well. He is just plain out of his depth here, trying to control this sprawling mess. Neither do the actors deliver: Mary McDonnell is the most chipper terminally-ill person you've ever seen ("You're supposed to be dying, stop smiling damnit!") and Jeff Goldblum sleepwalks through his role. Two hours of Judd Hirsch and Randy Quaid overacting their Jewish grandfather and Vietnam vet looney roles respectively, suggests most strongly that they should have been fired at the aliens in retaliation. Special mention should be made of Harry "no soul" Connick Jr, who normally makes a living pretending to be a black musician and here pretends to be a black fighter pilot. Even the usually reliable Bill Pullman, as the US President, looks distinctly uncomfortable. His lips move, sounding out a stirring speech. What you actually hear is him saying "Uh, bad alien! Go away!". When Brent Spiner appears in a thankless cameo as a boffin, you have hopes that Jonathan Frakes will show up in the role of the alien mothership. Alas, no.
No, the only people who really did their work for "In-duh-pendence Day" were the marketing experts and the SFX people and they do deserve a lot of credit. Unfortunately, much of the power of the special effects is lost on the small screen but they are still passingly impressive. Also effective are the action scenes, which are at least noisy, energetic and colourful, if too infrequent.
But most disturbing are several themes graunched into the movie. The most blatant of this is a clumsy pitch at American patriotism, replete with constant images of flags waving and national monuments. At its extremes this becomes hilarious, with a US flag on the stage curtain at a strip bar, booming theme music that sounds like nothing so much as "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles" and the combined military of the non-US world sitting in the desert waiting for "the Americans" to give directions.
More subtle but unmistakable is the constant reinforcement of traditional sex roles. Goldblum's prissy effeminate boss is shown to be a mama's boy and a coward before being killed. With the menfolk rushing around and fighting aliens, the women are left with little to do, asides from mind the children and look on admiringly. Those that have a man are reunited with them and plight their troth. Those that don't, die. Goldblum's eco-conscious SNAG is triumphantly transformed into a cigar-chomping Real Man by the end, come back to claim his woman. This, in my mind, is the most disturbing thing about "In-duh-pendence Day".
At the end, one is left an impression of clumsiness. There are certainly worse films, more illogical ones, worse scripted ones, dumber ones. But rolled into one long-winded parcel - that's ID4. [*/misfire] and a remake of "This Island Earth" on the Sid and Nancy scale.
"Independence Day" Directed by Roland Emmerich. Starring Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid, Bill Pullman, Will Smith, Mary McDonnell, Margret Colin, Vivica Fox, Brent Spiner, Robert Loggia, Harvey Fierstein, Harry Connick Jr. Released 1996.
------ paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
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