2.5 stars (out of 5)
The original Independence Day 20 years ago (!!!) was a cheese-drenched sci-fi blockbuster just begging for a sequel, and you’d think that co-writer/co-producer/director Roland Emmerich would have knocked one off years ago, but no, as first he had to get through other dodgy spectaculars like The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC, 2012 and White House Down (yikes!!!). But finally, two decades later, here we have an official follow-up, and it’s another soulless, FX-overloaded sequel that has a few laughs (which are all in the trailer), an embarrassed name cast and a ludicrously simplistic political vision of a world unified behind an America which doesn’t worry any longer about race, creed, colour and all the rest. Yep, suuuuuuuuuuure.
At the same time that Moon-miner-type Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth, who’s meant to be a grown-up version of a child character from the original) is causing trouble for his commanding officer (naturally) David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is discovering something uncomfortable about one of the alien ships left over from 20 years ago. Hemsworth’s Jake is also romancing Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), who just happens to be the daughter of the traumatised former President (Bill Pullman), and he’s also at odds with Dylan Hiller (Jessie T Usher), who just happens to be the son of Stephen Hiller, who in the first film was played by Will Smith (but Willy asked for too much money and so his absence here is explained away by him being conveniently dead).
Other characters from the first film are reintroduced, including the out-of-a-coma Dr Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner overacting away) and Levinson’s Jewish stereotype Dad Julius (Judd Hirsch), but don’t worry as there are some ladies in there too, and they number Dr Catherine Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg!) and a female President played by Sela Ward (get it, get it, hint, hint?). They’re all increasingly concerned that the extraterrestrials are coming back, and they of course are, and they do so in what must be the hugest spaceship in the history of cinema… and, um, perhaps just pretend you didn’t read that, if need be.
Emmerich and his technicians now have the technology and the budget to create apocalyptic FX the likes of which could have only been dreamed of back in 1996, and create them they do, to the extent that you’re desperate for all the orgasmically exploding stuff to STOP. But perhaps what irks most here isn’t the thumping action, dopey playing, clunking clichés or even that stupidly endangered cute dog: it’s the notion that since the original outer-space invasion 20 years ago Earth has healed and unified into one big caring-and-sharing wonderland of happiness and hope and improbably advanced technology, and everyone follows the lead of the good old US of A. Now that really is science fiction!!!
I Wake Up Screening 