Independence Day Resurgence: Appallingly Inept

When I was just a young'un, I happened to be a massive Star Wars fan. So back in 2015, my dad surprised me and took me to see The Force Awakens on opening night. And for reasons I cannot fathom, I distinctly remember the theater playing a trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence during the previews. Now, at the time, I'd never seen the original Independence Day, only the box for the DVD that my grandparents had at their house for some reason. Eventually, I got to watching the first Independence Day, but I can't exactly say I remember it today. And for whatever reason, I recently decided to watch it's sequel. I'll be honest with you, I kind of wish I hadn't. Independence Day: Resurgence is a cinematic disaster of epic proportions, and though it doesn't necessarily invent new types of awfulness, it sure perfects the recipe. Now, there are good things to be said about every movie, but trust me, the good things to say about Resurgence are extremely few and far between. In many ways, it plays like if you fed every specifically negative stereotype about a blockbuster movie into an AI and then asked it to write you something. Spoiler alert: it's going to be the worst-reviewed movie on this site so far, so if you're looking for some critical savagery, search no longer.

Independence Day: Resurgence is a 2016 example of how not to make a movie. Set 20 years after the original Independence Day, Earth has used alien technology recovered from the previous invasion to prepare for when the invaders inevitably return. A satellite engineer named David Levinson spearheads the efforts to investigate the detritus of the last war and repel the latest threat from the alien invaders - a mothership 3,000 miles in diameter.

Now, this movie is not entirely bad. This is kind of going to be like saying that at least the sky was blue on 9/11, but I found the fusion of human and alien technology we see in this movie interesting. It makes a lot of sense for the world that the movie is set in and even manages to look interesting. As for the plot, there is one small but intriguing instance of setup and payoff as well. But that's about where the good things to say about this movie end, and no, I'm not being hyperbolic. Looking through my notes, there are literally no other positive notes.

Right from the get-go, Independence Day: Resurgence just doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from its predecessor and falls prey to many cliches, namely the "son of the hero in the last movie" in regards to the character of Dylan. The whole cast in this movie is woefully underwritten and flat. It doesn't have the imagination to strike out in new directions nor the patience to try. Some of the ways this movie establishes conflict between characters are utterly nonsensical and entirely forced, and I got a sense pretty early on that stuff like this was going to be par for the course. I'm just getting started.

Some of the dialogue in this movie is....just awful. I have no other words to describe it. I'm frankly kind of surprised it was so poorly written, and I would consider it for an "award for awfulness" of some kind. The emotional cliches are utterly non-stop, and painfully thin. The exposition dumps in this movie are really poorly staged, uninspired, forced, and completely out-of-line. This is the laziest way to deliver information in a movie, and the filmmakers are practically lounging. Resurgence isn't really trying to be anything new, but a part of me wished in vain that the movie would forgo the mold of "the same as the last one, but bigger." And that said, for as much as the movie manages to fit on-screen, it's conversely shockingly empty. Its plot is neither big enough to fill the movie's runtime nor minimalist enough to meaningfully meditate on anything.

I get that being a critic does, in some ways, mean that I'm not allowed to have fun with movies anymore, so some of you reading this may side with a subculture that has labeled this movie "enjoyable" and described us critics as "out of touch" in regards to this movie as well as to many, many others. I hope you don't mind if I chime in on this sentiment. If someone who makes a living out of reviewing movies is out of touch with movies, does this mean that historians could be viably out of touch with history? Does it make scientists potentially out of touch with science? Regardless of what some would have you believe, there is indeed a measurable art to critiquing movies, and it just makes sense to me that someone who has trained in that field would be far more in touch with it than someone who merely dabbles in it for enjoyment.

This movie didn't just pain me to watch critically. As its runtime wore on, Independence Day: Resurgence also became seriously dull. It's likely the worst movie I've seen in the last year, succumbing to horrible cheese, woeful mis-plotting, and utterly appalling acting. On a hunch, I carried out a quick Google search and found that it was indeed nominated for Worst Picture at the Golden Raspberry Awards, which is pretty much the Anti-Oscars for those of you not familiar with the ceremony. I hated this movie. I hated, hated, hated it. I hated the way it clinically wrote its characters at as shallow a depth as any I've ever seen. I hated how it leaned entirely on its visual effects to desperately cling to some sense of relevance. I hated the way it actively refused to meaningfully build on its predecessor. And I hated the way it bored me. Independence Day: Resurgence can't even seem to have the decency to be fun, and this is just a grand insult to intergalactic injury.

This review isn't merely negative. That's not potent a classification enough. Consider this a condemnation.

Independence Day: Resurgence - 2/10

Ezekiel 1:1-8