Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)
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Writers: Nicolas Wright, James woods, Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, and James Vanderbilt.
Cast: Liam Hemsworth (Jake Morrison), Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson), Jessie T Usher (Dylan Hiller), Bill Pullman (President Whitmore), Maika Monroe (Patricia Whitmore), Sela Ward (President Lanford), Wiliam Fichtner (General Adams), Judd Hirsch (Julius Levinson), Brent Spinner (Dr. Brakish Okun), Patrick St. Esprit (Secretary of Defense Tanner), Vivica A. Fox (Jasmine Hiller), Angelababy (Rain Lao), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Catherine Marceaux), Deobia Oparei (Dikembe Umbutu0, Nicolas Wright (Floyd Rosenberg), Travis Tope (Charlie Miller), Chin Han (Commander Jiang), Gbenga Akinnagbe (Agent Travis), the late Robert Loggia (General Grey), John Storey (Dr. Isaacs), Joey King (Sam), and jenna Purdy (Voice of Sphere).
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An alien mothership in space, crawls closer to it's target, Earth. The alien observes a holographic image of Thomas Whitemore (Bill Pullman). The speech that brought so many people together, it started with a small force, until the group became hope for the planet, hope for the thousands trying to survive the alien wave of attacks. The creature gazes into the image of the President, it watches, it's anger rises as a loud growl echoes throughout the mothership.
Thomas Whitemore (Pullman) awakens from his sleep, no longer the President, his thoughts in the back of his mind are still on the aliens, even though there has not been an invasion for twenty years. The Earth has found a way to assimilate the alien technology; With stronger weapons, aircraft that could defy gravity, a satellite defense system, a moon-base of operations, and finally Area 51 where the global United front resides. The world has found a way for peace, only united can their world survive an attack. Patricia Whitemore (Maika Monroe) the daughter of former President tries to calm her dad down a bit. He murmurs about the aliens, which makes her nervous. Patricia works for the current President, Elizabeth Langford (Sela Ward). Patty was a pilot, but now she takes care of her father, which has taken a tole on her, but, thanks to Agent Travis (Gbenga Akinnagbe) the secret service detail on President Whitmore, gives her the room she needs to do her job.
The Earth's defense force and their elite pilots, Dylan Dubrow-Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), son of Steven Hiller (Will Smith) who had died in a horrible accident after the battle. Rain (Angelbaby), another pilot from the team visits the Moon base where the other characters are introduced. Patty's fiance, Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth) was appointed to the moon-base, a pilot that was grounded because of the jock move he had attempted, which almost killed his friend, and fellow pilot, Hiller (Usher). Working with Jake is his best friend, Charlie (Travis Toth). They both work on an orbital construct that detaches when transportation is needed from the moon to earth. Jake and Charlie are construction workers in space, all repairs and different machine parts are fixed if needed. They also observe the detachments, to ensure safety of passengers and the moon base altogether. although, Jake's a bit headstrong, but he gets the job done, with the help of Charlie.
The aliens are kept alive, they have been dormant since the attack, but twenty years later, everything in connection with them has awakened. The constant sound of the aliens screeching has awakened another man. Dr. Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner), he has been in a coma for twenty years, he immediately begins to write on the walls. Inscriptions, pictures, all about the aliens. The experience, everything he knows about the race is written on every section of the room. The aliens have effected the ones who fought them directly, Thomas Whitemore, Dr. Brakish Okun, feels the control the aliens had before, it comes and goes, but these two characters can feel a distinct pain when something is about to happen.
Review: The good parts of the film, and believe me they're many great scenes in this film, i will go over the ones i thought were done well. The beginning of the film has some character introduction, at least some of them had an opportunity to do their thing. By the way character introduction, even in sequel is important to an overall story, it shows continuity, which connects everything together. President Whitemore (Bill Pullman) his daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe), and Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher). These three characters developed a connection to the last film, an example would be Dylan Hiller (Usher). The son of the fallen hero continues in his father's footsteps; Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith). The father and son emotional tie in, granted the Steven Hiller died in a strange way, an accident instead of him taking out aliens, either way the tie was done well. The Whitemore family line, this is probably the most important because it's the main reason, why i believe the aliens came back. The dreams, nightmares, were all connected, it was almost epic, as is one leader to another, the alien queen had to destroy the race that beat her in the gruesome interplanetary war. The alien's were intelligent enough to go back and take what was theirs, Whitmore was the link, he had the nightmares, but it was a strong connection to the aliens.
Another great scene was the alien Queen towards the end, it was very cool the way the bus, aircraft's, and the alien, attacked all at once, everything was done smoothly, but you could tell the pilots were stressful, their situation was dire. Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch) scene with him and the kids, driving that bus to safety, a difficult task, but it worked. The scene was fun, sometimes gut wrenching, it was epic in every way. I love the interaction between David (Jeff Goldblum) and his dad, in that particular scene everything was so crazy, very good stuff, especially under stress. A huge alien is coming for you, a school bus, underneath it, and constant destruction all around. A group of fighters waiting to strike the alien from a far, before it reaches the shielded location. Meanwhile on the ground, a bus, trying to get away as fast as it can. the alien Queen trying to strike at everything that moves around her, it smashes the aircraft flying at her, strikes down each one, and then a bus speeding out of the way of the debris smashing into the ground. I absolutely loved this scene, it was entertaining, fun, it really made the film if you ask me.
The moon base scenes were done well, i really liked that the humans, finally advanced with the help of alien technology, but enough to make Earth a stronger, better place to live in. The interplanetary connection was established. What i mean by that is the way the tech was designed by humanity which almost looked like they had the edge, until the aliens came back. The sphere from another world, which was blown up by the United Defense Force, was the only hope that they had. The alien Queen was looking for that sphere. The sphere had a backstory, if the aliens were successful in capturing the sphere, it would've revealed other aliens, and their locations, the untited front against these creatures. The sphere story ark was really good, it reminded me of a Japanese animation called Robotech; Obviously it's not Robotech, but at least it gave a feeling of it, at least it did to me. The ships, alien force that attacks earth, humans developing a way to integrate the technology, ships that can go to and from Earth, a Robotech feel.
The Bad: I love special effects, even more when they stay with the story. But there was a scene where President Lanford (Sela Ward) is addressing the world in a stadium. Imagine an Olympic style event, celebrating twenty years of the aliens invasion. The effects were bad, i don't know why? but they were horrible. The green screen here was very noticeable, instead of a celebration, they should've had the characters interact more, instead they wanted to have more special effects. Here is a good a example of connection. Jasmine Hiller (Vivica A. Fox) who had limited scenes; Why not show her helping folks in the hospital, a least have her call her son, which was not done in the film, some interaction would've been better than the scenes she had. A second alien attack, you would think the hospitals would have a stronger defense system in the thought of another alien attack. I mean that the people had twenty years to perfect everything, and what happened was a huge mess, because her character didn't have a chance. She was so strong in the first film, why did she change her lifestyle, from a stripper to a Doctor, or medical personal. Nothing really was explained. her character survived so much in the first film, but in Resurgence she dies, and to me her heroism should've been explained more. The why? and what's are so integral in a story. killing a character like this without reason, even though an alien attack occurred was weak, and she at least should've deserved more than what they gave her in the story.
The Ugly: The biggest complaint i have about this film is the way it cut from scene to scene, it was cut to fast in my opinion, important information was left out. The moon base for example, the characters inside the base were cool, but the length of time they had to interact was ridicules. I would of loved to see more of the base, maybe understand the infrastructure of the base, a complete visual from the outside, in. A simple panoramic view of the base, to get your visuals going. They tried, but it was to quick, it was so quick in the cuts, the visuals were not part of the story, it surpassed the story. Let the story go, have the effects follow. Here is a good example of what I'm trying to convey here, remember the Force Awakens film, the way the X-wings flew low over the water, it was panoramic, a large view of what is coming or going. The scene doesn't have to be long, but it was taken in. Maybe if they did a slow pan of the whole base, inside and out, the view, and the feel would've been taken in better.
Another example would be the film Avatar, the scene of the environment on the planet, you feel what the characters did, you took in the visuals as the story was told, here the effects controlled the story. Another example is the film Gravity, space was huge, but it focused on the problem, and not the visuals, it explored when needed to explore. These examples are what was really missing in Independence Day: Resurgence, it was as if the studio said, you only have 120 minutes to tell your story. I would've never have made the film without Will Smith, or i definitely would've paid attention to the special effects; If your trying to tell a story with visuals, then do it right. And if your main actor says no, then find a way to convince him, period.
A mass invasion of this kind, especially twenty years later, i would've had sites that were destroyed, different places that was war torn from the last invasion. Show areas on the planet that had survived the mass destruction. Instead they show a ship that was in Africa, a crash site. Cool but not enough to fill the gaps. In a scene they have Umbutu (Deobia Oparei) a warlord from that region that has fought the aliens off, took their weapons, learned their language, cool but again no explanation, or at least a small one. OK, you killed an alien in the back, but your warriors have all these alien weapons, with no real explanation. A bad situation i guess, it leads up to another character, which this scene altogether should've been edited out.
This scene with David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) in Africa trying to find out why the ship has come alive. Well my guess would be, they're coming back, but what do i know. Here is the Secretary of State traveling in a very dangerous region, seeing that the alien ship and everything is alive, why would you travel in a place where you could potentially get your Secretary of State killed. the scene made no sense, it was dead upon arrival. I know it's a movie, filled with aliens, and more right? Nope because if you remember in Aliens they still had rules, yes even in movies. The Marines still had rules that applied to them, it was what made the film so good. The characters had motivations that applied to them, and that will always make a film rise above it all. The characters had a reason to go inside the building, even though they had the alien reasoning behind them. In Independence Day: Resurgence's reason to go to Africa was weak. Why not have a drone fly over the location, find the problem, send a team of military, black ops, extract the intelligence, and you have a great scene.
The film has a lots of issues, but so did the first film, at least they controlled the gravity situation, because it was the first films problem, and it was addressed. The alien invasion thing has always been my favorite of these types of films, in fact the way it turned out was cool, but as i review films i tend to break them down to the core. So yes, the film was entertaining, it has action, thrills, a bit of comedy to make your day, it was an alien attack the planet film. The first movie did well, because it was new, an alien attack movie. The story was good, but it had issues just like the first film. I was entertained, i enjoyed the film, it made me laugh at some points, it did it's job. Independence day: Resurgence could've been a better film, but it wasn't, i believe the studio made the director edit the film to make things more rounded, but instead it made it a complete mess. The movie is what it is, an alien attack film, and yes it has great moments, but the point here is that if you by any chance were entertained, then the film did it's job. I brought up some points that i saw the film had, but all in all it was just like the first Independence day, entertaining, fun, which made the movie enjoyable.
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