Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe

Have I Seen it Before: Yeah. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to see this when it came out back in ’16, especially when one considers how it took me about a year to get more than a little sick of Independence Day (1996). Maybe it was one of those years where I just felt compelled to see everything.

Did I Like It: Relax, the film easily passes the criteria for sequels: it is just as good as the original, or at least pretty cool. If you think otherwise, I submit that you might be remembering Independence Day through the lens of someone who was a child in the 1990s and thus, far easier to impress. It’s just as much of mindless special effects sizzle reel as the original.

There are fewer memorable special effects shots as the original. Nothing quite matches that shot of one of the alien saucers obliterating the White House, but I think that means the trailer for the original film is better than the trailer for this film. That much I’ll grant you. Also, I’ll admit that where the first film at least had the sort of heartwarming thought that the only thing that will unite humanity is the knowledge that there is something else out there for us to hate. Here we have… :checks notes: the realization that the aliens have a queen who is far larger than any of the others. Where have I seen that before?

The film’s ambitions are minimal, but I can’t say that I can completely dismiss any big tentpole film that fundamentally has little to offer when it offers me this much of Jeff Goldblum being as much Jeff Goldblum as he can be. It got me through Jurassic World Dominion (2022) and it made this a relatively easy way to spend a couple of hours, too.

Everybody might want to complain about the absnece of Will Smith, but it honestly didn’t even occur to me. I don’t think he would have improved anything.

Independence Day (1996)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. The summer of ‘96, this thing was bigger than Star Wars. At least, it felt like it was bigger than Star Wars, especially in an era before the special editions and the prequels. The family saw it during Independence Day weekend in Washington DC, which was probably the way to take in this movie intially. There were toys, there were tie-in novels, and there was the subsequent wearing out of a VHS copy.

Did I Like It: But then something happened. It was about a year after the film’s release, and I was at a Sci-Fi convention. They had a room devoted to endless screenings of various movies*. This movie was playing, I caught the tail end of it.

And I was bored beyond comprehension. I was thirteen. The film barely had a shelf-life of a year.

The jokes had burned out after the first viewing, the storyline collapses under even the slightest scrutiny of a thirteen-year-old, and the special effects would become passé very quickly after that. There simply isn’t that much movie there. Outside of a THX certified theater, the thrill disappears like vapor.

Seriously, this is a movie where scores of characters roll their eyes whenever Randy Quaid starts ranting about flying saucers, like visitors from another planet is the most patently ridiculous idea ever considered... While at the same time there are flying saucers everywhere. Did they hold any script meetings about this film? Or do people just have to react that way to Randy Quaid, regardless of the actual circumstances?

And still, I want to remember what enjoying the film was like. I suppose it’s a nice idea that the various nations of the world would get over their provincial differences and unite against a common enemy. Will Smith arrives fully-formed as a movie star for the masses here, having hinted at his charisma with Bad Boys (1995).

Also, the action figures came with computer games on floppy disks, which was pretty cool.

I’m trying, folks. I know the film is beloved by many, but it just ain’t me.

*Conventions don’t really do that any more, aside from anime. They should.

Godzilla (1998)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria

Have I Seen it Before: It is the beginning of the summer in 1998. The Promenade Palace theater is having its grand opening. I very particularly remember a large inflatable Godzilla on the roof. I also remember all of its screens were committed to the showing of this movie. So, naturally, I was there for it. It was one of those summers where I saw everything I could. In retrospect, betting big on this film was probably a losing gambit for the theater to enter the world. As I type this, the theater is now abandoned. Now I’m depressed. Thanks, Godzilla.

Did I Like It: This film was resoundingly rejected upon its release, and time has not been any kinder to it. The special effects are poor (even for the era), and the story is the laziest version of the loose thematic trilogy that Devlin and Emmerich started with <Stargate (1994)> and continued with Independence Day (1996), which feature a nebbish scientist being the key to the secret wonders of some slimy alien thing that will spend most of its time blowing up famous buildings.

The filmmakers would tend to blame a rushed production schedule forcing them into the Memorial Day weekend, but I don’t buy it. There is not one instant of this film that isn’t crassly calculated to lurch its way through an opening weekend. Each set has just enough room for product placement for everything from KFC and Taco Bell to Bacardi. Even Mac and Me (1988)* had some whimsy about it. It has very little to do with the Godzilla series, aside for the licensing of the name from the Toho company, and would have been more aptly titled The Iguana Who Ate Manhattan and Some Fish. Even it’s poster tagline, “Size Does Matter” feels like a junior executive excreted it than any kind of creative decision.

And then there’s Mayor Ebert (Michael Lerner). I’m not sure what the point of a set of characters based on Siskel and Ebert is supposed to be. It’s a running gag in every scene where the film is groaning to try to sell the seriousness of its peril. It also isn’t that funny. It also doesn’t make any sense to put these caricatures in New York City, when the two critics were Chicago institutions.

Was it intended to buy some goodwill with the critics themselves? Well, it didn’t. I looked it up and they both hated the film. And aside from some fond memories of a movie theater that’s never coming back, I kinda hate it, too.

*A film I remember both fondly and likely incorrectly from my childhood, if for no other reason than it has my name in it.

Stargate (1994)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Cast: Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Alexis Cruz

Have I Seen it Before: For someone who only very recently and casually got into the vast television franchise this film launched, the VHS of this film was on regular rotation during my childhood, so much so that while watching this Director’s Cut for what I think is the first time, I was able to figure out what scenes had been rearranged and added in.

Did I Like It: As my wife and I have started our way through the long (too long? I assume we’ll find out) multiple television series, I can’t help but be consumed with one overwhelming thought:

This needs a little more James Spader*.

And the movie is more than willing to provide. It’s ultimately a B-movie that would have felt right at home with a z-grade budget produced by the studios of yesteryear, but with Spader’s unpredictable, sort of slithering movie-star quality, the film unfurling is more interesting to watch than the standard sci-fi fare of the era. 

The special effects don’t age exceptionally well, but that can hardly be held against the film as the more time passes the more films produced in the 90s are going to look like garbage graphics from a local news station. The shimmering water of the Stargate itself, or the slightly hypnotic screensaver quality of the transit between gates, and the shifting nature of the villains masks are just a couple of things that make the film a relic of its era. It’s strengths lie elsewhere. With sweeping epic desert shots that couldn’t be faked with CGI—and, admittedly were yanked directly from other, better films like Lawrence of Arabia (1962)—the film has a more interesting visual sense than you might expect from other big budget films, especially these days. It may derivative, sure, but at least it reaches for something a little more than its trappings.

*In case you’re wondering, as far as television series needing a certain degree of James Spader included, Stargate functions better with some Spader, Boston Legal cannot function at all without wall-to-wall Spader, and The Office would generally be better without Spader. It’s not a universal constant.