'Independence Day: Resurgence' - Review

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

“That is definitely bigger than the last one” states Jeff Goldblum glumly, as a ginormous alien craft sweeps over the lunar surface, wiping out a large human moon base. In one line, the purpose of Independence Day: Resurgence is revealed: less a joyful return to a fondly remembered sci-fi than it is Roland Emmerich’s attempt to score another blockbuster, after his sorely misjudged gay rights drama, Stonewall, burnt up on re-entry.

Yes, twenty years after humanity banded together to avoid annihilation in 1996, the flying saucers are back. Only this time, David Levinson (Goldblum) and co. have advanced alien tech on their side. Ex-President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is plagued with visions of the returning aliens, as is Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner), helpfully informed by his boyfriend before he wakes that he’s been “in a coma for 7,300 days!”. Whitmore’s daughter (Maika Monroe replacing Mae Whitman, for unexplained reasons) has resigned flying duties, but her fiancée, Jake, (Liam Hemsworth) remains in space operating moon tugs alongside wise-cracking co-pilot Charlie (Travis Tope).

Before long, the aliens (responding to a distress call from a long-dormant craft on Earth) show up again with a ship large enough to cover the entire Atlantic, crushing our reconstructed landmarks in a sequence that reprises the ‘WOAH!’ factor of the original incredibly well. People can say what they want about modern day CGI, but when it’s picking up the entire city of Dubai and dropping it on London, it’s hard not to be swept up in the spectacle.

The problems, however, arise soon after. In ID4, mass calamity was a wake-up call to humanity that we needed to put aside our differences and fight as one, inspiring the next generation as we went. There’s little of that here: the destruction is over as quickly as it’s begun, and barely a tear is shed. When the heads of state are wiped out and a new President played by William Fichtner is ushered into presidency, his speech to mankind is a hollow shell of Bill Pullman’s original ear-scorcher, whilst a small group of kids who survived the initial attack are too busy being shepherded about on a school bus to be inspired (in the most ludicrous use of the bright yellow vehicle since “protection from the blast” in The Dark Knight Rises).

There’s no other way of putting it: there are way too many characters in this film. Asides from the members of the original cast that stuck around (like Judd Hirsch, dropping “putz” and “schmuck” every other line to remind us he’s Jewish), we’ve got Charlotte Gainsbourg (looking like she got thoroughly lost on the way to another set but was too polite to leave) as a clipboard-saddled scientist, Jessie T. Usher as Dylan Hiller (son of Will Smith’s character, who passed between films) and Deobia Oparei as a Central African warlord who delivers what turns out to be the be-all, end-all of alien invasion countermeasures. The film spends so long introducing and arranging this overflowing bucket of action figures that the middle act and finale pass by in a flash. 

Little is required of Goldblum besides, well, being Jeff Goldblum, but Liam Hemsworth and Maika Monroe have zero chemistry as the central couple, and it’s really rather depressing to see their relationship (and that of Charlie and a Chinese pilot he continuously ogles) given precedence over Okun and his partner; a far more believable, energetic and interesting relationship that is eventually mired in one gay couple trope too many.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a proper 21^st century franchise nostalgia trip without a sledgehammering of call-backs and references to the original, but even they feel half-hearted at best and misjudged at worst. Levinson’s wife has disappeared entirely, Smith’s Captain Hiller is immortalized by a ludicrous portrait hanging in the White House, and the dialogue is ripe with repeated one-liners. Oh, and the final showdown takes place over the exact same stretch of burning white salt flats as before. As for the score, any recognisable themes from David Arnold’s ’96 work are reserved mostly for an end credits reprise, the remaining soundtrack an ‘action adventure’-branded musical Polyfilla. 

This is not to say Independence Day: Resurgence is completely devoid of new ideas: there’s a bonkers revelation that makes the prospect of a third instalment intriguing rather than off-putting, but it’s too little, too late. The film makes a shaky promise to reinstate Roland Emmerich as the king of giant-sized summer mayhem, but it fumbles the opportunity, delivering in the process something cluttered, noisy and nonsensical. Much like the apparently invincible mothership dominating the Earth, its shields are already failing: with a disappointing $41.6 million opening in the U.S., any semblance of an impassioned cheer is quickly becoming the first of many exasperated sighs.