Review - Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

       Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, it's the Fourth of July, and since last year I looked at the 1996 sci-fi disaster film Independence Day, this year I'm taking a look at its 2016 sequel: Independence Day: Resurgence. 

         It's been twenty years since the aliens first arrived on Earth, and a lot has changed since the events of what has become known as the "War of 1996." A new coalition, the Earth Space Defense, has been established, with David Levinson acting as its director. Alien technology has been married with our own, creating new, advanced vehicles and weapons. Among the members of ESD include Dylan Dubrow-Hiller, stepson of Steve Hiller (who died during a test flight of a prototype of the human/alien fighter jet), and Jake Morrison, whose parents died during the War of 1996. Jake is engaged to Patricia Whitmore, daughter of former President Tom Whitmore. Patricia was once an ESD pilot, but gave up flying to take care of her father, whose been having nightmares of the aliens returning. 

          On July 4, 2016, the Earth prepares to celebrate twenty years since the War of 1996, with US President Elizabeth Lanford preparing a speech, Dylan preparing to represent the US on the Legacy Squadron, along with Chinese pilot Rain Lao, and David heads to Africa to meet with local warlord Dikembe Umbutu, who like Tom has been having nightmares about the aliens. It's in Africa that we see an alien ship that actually landed on Earth's surface in 1996, but deactivated when the mothership was destroyed. Unfortunately, the ship's lights are on, and David, Umbutu, and French psychiatrist Catherine Marceaux head inside to investigate, learning that a distress call was sent out into deep space. Meanwhile, at Area 51, Dr. Brackish Okun wakes up from a twenty-year coma, his mind also affected by his encounter with the aliens. 

             An alien craft, different from that of the aliens that invaded in 1996, arrives near the moon, and in spite of the arguments that David presents, it's destroyed. Jake, along with his friend and co-pilot Charlie Miller, heads to pick up David in Africa and take him to the crash site on the moon. During their investigation, a much larger ship, this time belonging to the aliens that invaded in 1996, arrives, destroying the moon base as well as Earth's planetary defenses. Legacy Squadron is sent back to Area 51, and the Moon Tug craft carrying Jake, David, Charlie, and co. is carried by the alien ship to Earth. The ship, which has its own gravity, picks up an entire city and later drops it on London, with Jake piloting the Moon Tug to safety. 

         The ship lands on Earth, centering its main weapon over the Atlantic ocean and firing. The weapon in question is a drill, that is drilling until it reaches Earth's molten core, which the ship will then extract, destroying Earth's atmosphere and gravitational field, wiping out all life in the process. Jake, along with Dylan, Rain, and Charlie gear up an lead a fighter squadron to take on the alien fighters in combat, in an effort to reach the aliens' queen, who is sitting in a center piece of the ship. The attack fails, however, and several pilots are taken into the ship itself. A squad of ground troops then enter Cheyenne mountain, killing President Lanford and everyone else inside. At Area 51, General Joshua Adams, who is seen as the designated survivor, is sworn in as the President of the United States. Meanwhile, the piece brought in from the moon wreckage is opened, with a giant, smooth, white sphere rolling out. Upon activating, the sphere reveals that it leads a resistance against the aliens, known as Harvesters, saving people from worlds destroyed by the Harvesters and training them to fight back. The sphere fears, however, that the Harvester queen will destroy the sphere, gaining access to the location of the Resistance planet. 

        David makes a plan, which involves using the Area 51 shields, a Moon Tug, an emitter giving off the sphere's signal, and cold fusion bombs to lure the queen's craft into a trap and kill her, forcing the main ship to be recalled into space. Tom volunteers to fly the tug, and is escorted by Patricia to the place of the trap. Meanwhile, Jake, Dylan, Charlie, and Rain hijack two alien fighters and.escape, heading to the fight at Area 51. 

         Meanwhile, David's father Julius, who was rescued by a three kids in Florida, arrives on the Salt Flats in a school bus, whose driver left it and a bunch of kids behind to head to Vegas. David and Julius reunite, and everyone bears witness to the queen's craft being destroyed. However, the queen survives and is heads to where the sphere is really located, only to be destroyed by Jake, Dylan, Charlie, and Rain. In the aftermath, Julius decides to take care of the three kids that rescued him, Jake and Patricia reunite, Charlie and Rain decide to go out some time, and Okun informs both David and President Adams of the sphere's blueprints and schematics for the means for interstellar travel, wanting humanity to head to space and lead the assault on the Harvesters directly, ending the movie. 

         Okay, so this movie was high on my list of most anticipated movies of 2016, and five years later, I definitely see that is wasn't as good as the first one. However, I wasn't as disappointed as most, simply because I knew what to expect with this movie: over the top action, over the top visual effects, and hammy as hell acting. Returning cast, including Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, and Vivica A. Fox are all terrific, and newcomers like Liam Hemsworth, William Fichtner, Angelababy, Chin Han, Joey King, Charlotte Gainsbourg, DeObia Oparei, Sela Ward, and others were all good as well. But again, it's all hampered by every single cliche and trope seen in pretty much every film that Roland Emmerich has ever directed. And while many fans were upset by the recasting of both Dylan and Patricia, as both Ross Bagley Jr and Mae Whitman could have returned to their roles, I thought that Jessie T. Usher and Maika Monroe did a decent job with the roles. Overall, twenty years of development led to a nonsensical plot bogged down by everything that audiences had become familiar with from previous Roland Emmerich films, and that leads me to give Independence Day: Resurgence a rating of 3.25/5. Again, I enjoyed this movie, but it definitely wasn't as good as the first one. 

            Now, one thing that everyone talked about with this movie was the obvious lack of Will Smith as Steve Hiller, one of the heroes of the first movie. During development on this film, Roland Emmerich approached Will around the same time that Warner Bros. approached him to appear as Deadshot in the 2016 film Suicide Squad. Seeing as that film was a guarantee, but Roland couldn't guarantee that the Independence Day sequel was a for sure thing yet, Will chose to star in Suicide Squad, and Steve was written out of the movie. I agree that it sucks he couldn't be in this, but this kind of thing happens all the time. 

        Now, I do believe that Roland Emmerich did have plans for sequels, but since this film was a box office dud, and 20th Century Fox was acquired by Disney, any plans for future Independence Day movies are currently unknown, and most likely unlikely to happen. Anyway, this is Chuck signing off, and wherever you are in the world, have a great Fourth of July.