INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996) A film review by Steve Kong Copyright 1997 Steve Kong
Well, what can you say about a film brought to you by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the "creative" team behind Stargate? Not much. They bring more uninspired sci-fi that is not more than a derivative of many original films before it. To say the least, Independence Day is an overly long special effects driven summer movie. Is that bad? In some cases no, and for a while, it looked as if Independence Day was going to be good.
Independence Day is the textbook example of a special effects and media hype driven movie. The story is almost quick and easy, aliens come to Earth, they don't want to make friends and share in knowledge, they want to destroy us and mine our planet for all its got. If Emmerich and Devlin could have make the movie with such a short sweet premise and then driven that with special effects, Independence Day would have turned out OK. But, Emmerich and Devlin chose to add to the story. Adding to the story a large set of two-dimensional characters and their stock cliched lives. And then on top of that, to make Americans happy, they sprinkle on some hurrah for the audiences in the US. This puts a tremendous weight on the film, and halfway through the film, the weight starts to crush the film.
Independence Day starts off well with the song "It's the End of the World." And then gets even better with the alien attack. But, after the attack, the film starts to strain. And for the next forty some odd minutes, it almost seems as if the film has come to a complete halt. The ending is exciting enough, but it is not a good enough pay off for the slow midsection of the film.
I admit, I had a bit of silly fun when I saw the film, and I even own the film on laserdisc. But, it is that center of mass in this film that crushes the film. Independence Day runs two hours and twenty-five minutes, the film could have easily been edited down to two hours or even an hour and a half, but Emmerich and Devlin push on and try to tell a few love stories in between. The special effects are there, and they are satisfying to a point, but some of the effects look very retro in comparison to some of the current crop of special effects. The aliens look different enough from any other movie alien, but the question is, how do those guys stand on those small feet? The aliens in here are scary, but they are not as scary as Giger's Alien from the Alien Trilogy. The spacecraft? Cute, but mostly uninspired, the mother ship is a blob, and the small fighter ships are smaller blobs.
The biggest joy of the movie is Will Smith, who currently is still protecting Earth from aliens in the more enjoyable Men In Black. Smith gives as good as a performance he can with the limited role he is given. Judd Hirsch gives a wonderfully funny performance as Goldblum's father. And the last, though strangely morbid, joy of the film is the destruction sequence that was shown oh-so-much during the trailers.
Pullman also does a decent job as the President of the United States, but he looks a bit young for that position. As for the other supporting roles they include the following. Vivica Fox as a stripper that Smith's character is going to marry. Randy Quaid as a, get this, drunken pilot, and Quaid highly overplays his part. Robert Loggia plays a stiff General. Mary McDonnell gets to play First Lady. Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek The Next Generation) makes a guest appearance as a scientist working at Area 51. There are about another half a dozen other speaking roles in Independence Day. With this many speaking roles, you can see how characters can easily be turned into two-dimensional characters. Had a few of these characters been consolidated into a more three-dimensional and interesting character, it would have made the movie better.
I can make a long list of gripes I have with the movie, but I won't (though if you really want, email me). See the movie and you can see why I have a long list of gripes. Sure, this is supposed to be a loud, dumb, explosive summer film, but Emmerich and Devlin have taken the dumb part to an extreme. I think that in some cases they have taken it to an extreme to inject some humor, but in other cases, as with the ending, they have just taken it to the extreme. This leaves the audience asking themselves, "How dumb do you think we are?"
Is Independence Day fun? Yes, to an extent. The first third is fun. The last third is fun. The midsection is atrocious. Now that Independence Day is out on video, rent it and try it out. And be glad that your VCR can fast-forward, because skipping the midsection is almost necessary to enjoy the film. Emmerich and Devlin's next "creative" outing will be next summers' Godzilla, let's hope that somewhere between the release of Independence Day and the editing of Godzilla that they have learned to cut a faster moving, tighter, and a little bit smarter movie. But, I doubt this, for Independence Day had made a boatload of money because of early media hype, which afterwards the film did not live up to. Godzilla previews have now started, and the media machine is turning, lets see if Emmerich and Devlin can churn out something worthy of the massive media hype this time.
!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=! steve kong "I want something else boiled@earthlink.net to get me through this spy on me: steve-cam.home.ml.org semi-charmed kinda life" - 3eb movie reviews: hardboiled.home.ml.org !=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!=!
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