Verdict: ★★★

Independence Day: Resurgence is a movie I’ve been anticipating since the credits first rolled on ID4. I’ve read some of the fan fiction, I’ve bought a couple of the post-movie books, I’ve even bought a picture album of movie screen shots because I loved that flick so much.

So when I saw the trailer for ID:R, I nearly shat a brick. And not just any brick… but the big, clunky, red kind. Yeah, that’s serious! Now, there are some spoilers in this review, not much, but some. So if you haven’t seen it and want to be completely surprised… READ NO FURTHER!

You’ve been warned. Go see it, then come back here and we’ll talk. Aaaaaand… go!

Okay so here we are, I saw it on July 4th weekend because Independence, and typical for Roland Emmerich’s work, there’s a ton of CGI, alien monsters and total city destruction with billions of people dying from a distance. See, the blessing about an Emmerich movie (and its curse, really) is that he really goes big so that the camera has to back off a few miles just so you can see what’s going on. In 2012, you knew very well that billions of people were dying all around the camera, and following that plane through downtown L.A. while subway trains were pooping themselves out of (suddenly) mile-high tunnels and thousands cars on the 405 were dumped unceremoniously into a bottomless abyss. What you didn’t see were the people, children, mothers, fathers, inside those cars and trains and being squashed under toppling buildings.

Same goes for ID:R… an entire hemisphere was sucked up in the air by MegaMaid (she’s gone from suck to blow!) and then dumped back down on itself, so you know very well that billions died. This makes Man Of Steel’s demolition of Metropolis look like a kid stepping on an anthill. Turns out, none of it was really necessary because the main point wasn’t the aliens’ destruction of a hemisphere… it was to drill to the Earth’s mantle to destroy the planet while getting the molten rock for their energy.

While I don’t have a problem with that, what was sacrificed for the CGI of Europe getting tossed like a salad was the story line itself. ID:R had several young characters who were the children of the first movie’s heroes. Capt. Dylan Hiller (Jessie Usher) is a household name because he’s essentially royalty, being Steve and Jasmine Hiller’s son. A fine pilot himself, he’s got a pretty harsh problem with Lt. Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth) over a training accident that happened recently but you never really get to see what the problem is save for a tiny video that Jake plays before quickly shutting off. Jake’s fiance, Patricia (Maika Monroe) daughter of ex-President Tom Whitmore knows them both and would totally love it if they were BFFs again but you don’t get to see why she knows them or even what their background is save a single picture of the three of them in Jake’s locker.

Here’s the real problem with the movie… I don’t really care about any of these new people because I don’t know them except that they’re the kids from the first flick all grown up. Each character’s story is basically spoon fed to you with two or three lines and then they’re off to fight something. I would have appreciated another hour of the movie just getting to know them. Maybe a reference to dylan “just shootin’ aliens” or Patricia thinking about her late mother.

But enough about that because everyone from the first flick is on screen as well! Well, sort of. Okay, with the exception of Tom Whitmore (a rather aged and bearded Bill Pullman) and David Levinson (Jeff F—ing Goldblum! Woohooo!) all the old characters we fell in love with from the first one appeared for a few minutes and then disappeared as if being marched across stage for their token bow then marched right back off again.

Forget about any of the background characters who showed up but didn’t do much. Wait, why was Joey King in this movie? She’s a kid with parents who died and is… what is she doing? It doesn’t matter because the CGI in the air is what is important here. She’s crying for some reason, she pops her cute little face up here and there throughout the movie, but the movie seemed to push her out of the way just as fast.

And why was there a French woman romantically teasing David throughout the entire movie? What happened to David’s former flame, Connie? Nothing. Not even a little history. Just… they’re romantic, so be quiet and enjoy the aliens. K? K.

The only thing I hope for is that they tack that extra hour on the DVD. Please God, let them tack that on. I wanted to see more of my heroes here, but everything happened so fast. It was like a guy standing there holding a sign with arrows and hastily sharpied words telling us what every character was about in two lines or less then standing aside for the dogfight scenes.

So, TL;DR, I’ll sum it all up here with the pros and cons.

Pros:
~ The CGI was typical Roland Emmerich… bad ass and sophisticated on another level from Hollywood’s usual fare.
~ Excellent action.
~ Rockin’ dog fights that make Top Gun look like my three year old throwing a paper airplane.
~ The movie never takes itself too seriously and has lots of good humor thrown in.

Cons:
~ I’ve seen better emotional content in an IKEA directions packet.
~ Lots of needless destruction that pushes the story out of the way.
~ You never really get to know anyone, you’re just supposed to assume they’re good at what they do and you’re safe in their capable hands.

(shrugs)