INDEPENDENCE DAY
A film review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Roland Emmerich Writers: Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich Starring: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Mary MacDonnell, Vivica A. Fox, Robert Loggia, Harvey Fierstein, Harry Connick Jr., Brent Spiner, Adam Baldwin
According to popular film opinion, a film's greatness is determined by time. Take for example "Casablanca." Great film, even today. It's still as powerful as it was when it came out and still as romantic and tragic. Another example would be "Star Wars," which had a very, very healthy box office gross despite the fact that we had all seen it about 3 billion times before. But as I rewatched "Independence Day" when it came out on video after being the number one hit of 1996, I kinda felt like it wasn't as cool as when I had first seen it. I had liked it when I saw it the first time (*** was my original view) and basically saw it as a good "escape film." But when I rewatched it, I felt cheated. Thus, the curse of the "event film."
"Independence Day" is like that kid who come out of nowhere and makes everybody happy at once (except for a couple kids - the critics, in this situation). But after a while, this kid becomes annoying and you just wait for the next one. Well, this kid is the "event film" in my little analogy. And when I rewatched "Independence Day," not only did it not look cooler at all on the big screen, but I felt insulted the whole time. There are too many gaping craters in the plot and you just aren't sure if it's comedy or hokey drama. One scene, you'll see a hilariously nebbish scene between Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch; the next you'll see a bunch of military uptight guys walking around, saying corny lines. The worst is a scene between Brent Spiner and Bill Pullman where Spiner is sayinig something innocently funny but is barked like a junkyard dog by Bill Pullman who gives him the most unitentionally funniest speech since the end of "Glen or Glenda?"
Now this annoying kid's problem is that in the process of trying to make everyone like him all at once, he shows he has no balls. And "Independence Day" has no balls. It plays it safe everywhere. It throws in a ton of action that is borrowed from other superior films. The chase scene between the alien ship and Will Smith is straight out of "Star Wars." I mean, isn't that Devil's Den? And the aliens are about as anticlimactic as Demi Moore's breasts in "Striptease." They're these octopus men, boring freaking octopus men. I mean, come on. The aliens in "2001" were more interesting and you didn't even see them!
Basically the plot is straight from a B-Movie from the 50s: aliens come to earth and we wonder if they're hostile or peaceful. Okay, it's an interesting topic, but it's not handled greatly. Now they aren't and somehow a computer geek, Jeff Goldblum, figure out they're using our satellites as a countdown to destruction. Yep. These aliens are not only heavily armed, they're stupid too. They also use the same kind of computer as we do, but that comes about later. The president (Bill Pullman), who's under attack for being a wimp, decides this would be a nice time to be belligerent, and he decides he'll stay in the White House which the aliens have covered. I don't care if it's Bob freaking Dole in the White House, get him out of there. I don't care if you have to inject him with sodium pentathol, just get him out of there. Later on, he's stupid and wants to fly in the attack on a big alien ship. I think it's time for impeachment for this guy. He's more senile than Reagan on pot.
Then there's a cocky pilot (Will Smith) who is the only person to survive the counter-attack on the second day and becomes Moses in leading his children to the elusive Area 51 (the film's only sign of being brave). His girlfriend's a stripper sharing a subplot with "Striptease" in that she has to do it for her son. Come on, she has a fighter pilot boyfriend/soon-to-be fiance. I think she can quit that job and get a more respectable job at Long John Silvers. She's also the few, the proud, the lucky to survive the igniting of L.A. (as well as her dog, who narrowly survives).
There are some bright spots. They tossed in enough old film homages to keep me laughing. The best one is when Jeff Goldblum (nicely named David) turns on his computer and a picture of HAL comes up and says, "Good Morning, Dave." And they even played R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) at the beginning. And Judd Hirsch steals the film by actually acting great (he's a stereotype, but I just loved the man anyway). But there are no real subtle comic moments. Will gets way too many one-liners and he has no one to play off of (execept Jeff towards the end, and the two do great).
As I said, this film has no balls. It is just aiming for a crowd pleaser and that's what it is. But after a couple months, we all move on to the next "event" film while intaking little films and a couple indy ones for good measure. But at least the indy ones last for a lifetime. This one's short on batteries.
MY RATING (out of 5): **
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