‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ Is Extremely Dumb, But That’s Exactly What Makes It So Good

Independence Day: Resurgence is a wildly silly movie full of nonsensical logic, terrible exposition dialogue, and convoluted gobbledygook science. It also doesn’t matter one bit, because this sequel to the 1996 blockbuster is a whole lot of fun. How can you not admire the wonderful dumbness of somebody asking what gravity is? Or an admiral being completely ignored when he questions how a 500-mile spaceship entered the galaxy without anyone noticing? Or a bus-load of scrappy kids stopping their alien getaway to save a cute dog?

Roland Emmerich’s original film was in many ways the beginning of the modern blockbuster era. It took the pulp of 1950s sci-fi end-of-the-world scenarios and turned it up to eleven. This was rare then at a time when blockbusters were the realm of natural disasters (Twister), animals (Jaws), space opera (Star Wars and Star Trek franchises), and evil technology (Terminator 2: Judgment Day). Its revolutionising of film marketing, popularising of self-referential dialogue, and position in the expansion of the international box office made it an era-defining hit.

Sure, Resurgence is essentially a rehash of the first movie with even bigger stakes, but there’s a reason why Independence Day is beloved by a generation — and all the building-busting explosions and quippy lead characters are still satisfying to watch today.

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It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (Again)

It’s 20 years after the events of the original Independence Day and in what is perhaps the film’s biggest logical leap, it turns out the alien invasion of the first film rallied the world’s nations together for two decades without war. Humans have used the technology they left behind to advance astronomically into the future, including building a base on the moon — apparently contractors got super productive in those two decades — and preparing for a return attack.

It’s here we meet Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth), a lunar-based pilot who is dating Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe). She is the daughter of the former President (Bill Pullman and Bill Pullman’s beard) who is now plagued by visions of the alien’s imminent return. Jake’s chief rival is Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the son of Will Smith’s character from the original movie who has since died in vague circumstances (Smith said he was more concerned with “storytelling” than “explosions and gimmicks” and chose not to return). Everybody looks to Jake to recreate his father’s legendary heroics and save the world.

Naturally, the aliens return (when asked how nobody noticed them drifting through the galaxy, the characters and the film simply don’t answer) and are intent on drilling to our planet’s molten core and killing everyone dead. Then there’s a giant spherical device that could save us all, an African warlord (Deobia Oparei), a Chinese fighter pilot (Angelababy), a female President (Sela Ward), a boatload of drunks out in the Atlantic Ocean, and a French scientist (Charlotte Gainsbourg, sticking around longer than Juliette Binoche in Godzilla, but given just as little to do). There’s even a surprisingly heartfelt gay romance that somehow works better than Emmerich’s entire Stonewall fiasco from 2015. Oh, and Hiller’s mum (Vivica A. Fox), kooky David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) and his overly stereotypical Jewish dad (Judd Hirsch) are all back from the first film too.

The film is stacked, but thankfully it’s with actors who are very watchable — most of whom know how to handle the knowingly cheesy material they’ve been given.

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The Power Of Nostalgia 

Despite being plainly derivative of the original, the new film actually gets incredible mileage for simply not being about a Marvel superhero, or the X-Men, or the DC comics, or being tied to any other long-running franchise about pirates, dinosaurs, fast cars, or divergent, hungry, maze-running young adults. You don’t need to have studied hours of texts and seen a dozen other movies just to follow it.

In many ways, it succeeds in the same way as last year’s Star Wars revival (although it’s not as good) by returning to a world that we haven’t been overloaded by in recent years. By sitting out the last 20 years and bypassing the era of mass franchisification of mainstream movie-going through endless big budget sequels and spin-offs and reboots and remakes, Roland Emmerich’s return to the bombastic effects spectacles that he’s famous for somehow actually feels like a breath of fresh air.

I suppose it sounds like I’m damning Independence Day: Resurgence with faint praise, but I swear I found it extremely charming. For a film that exists almost exclusively due to generational nostalgia, it’s not at all surprising that Emmerich and his four (!!) co-writers have given us a film that embraces the tropes of the past without cynicism or irony and delivers them with delightful relish.

If you think you’re laughing at it, then you’re wrong. It knows exactly how silly it is and it just wants you to have a goofy, good time.

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The Case Of The Missing Stefanovic And Other Editing Sins

It shouldn’t be any surprise that one of the film’s best attributes is its visual effects. 20 years on from the original and watching landmarks be destroyed by alien lasers just doesn’t cut it anymore with movie-after-movie offering metropolis destruction on an apocalyptic scale. So, of course, Emmerich goes big including a nifty sequence in which a spaceship’s gravitational pull sends an entire Asian city floating towards the sky, and a particularly absurd one where Judd Hirsch rides a tsunami to shore.

The CGI work is some of the most impressive in recent times, right down to the textural bodies of the aliens and their mother queen which could almost be mistaken for practical effects. It’s certainly more realistic than the overly plastic aesthetic of another late-breaking sequel, Jurassic World.

Where the film suffers is in its editing, where it becomes crystal clear that somebody took to it with a mighty big pair of scissors. Rumour has it that somewhere between 20-30 minutes were cut out of the movie and it shows in the way certain characters are suddenly dropped out of the picture and the third act feels incredibly rushed.

Also, despite all the talk last year, Karl Stefanovic was not to be found among the rubble, the trailer features scenes that aren’t in the finished product, and keen watchers of end credits will notice song credits that are never heard. I’m rarely one to criticise a film for choosing to be 120 minutes as opposed to 150, but something feels missing in the final product. There’s no doubt a director’s cut waiting in the wings to be sold on home entertainment in six months’ time.

So, was all this worth it? After a rough year for big-budget Hollywood blockbusters — think Batman v Superman, X-Men: Apocalypse, Alice Through The Looking Glass, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, London Has Fallen and more — I think Emmerich chose the right time to return.

It would be refreshing if they waited another 20 years to make the next one, but a rather unsubtle final scene sets up a sequel that will no doubt come a lot faster. It remains to be seen whether nostalgia will be enough to build a new franchise on, but in the case of Resurgence it’s certainly enough to build an entertaining slice of sci-fi silliness.

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Independence Day: Resurgence is in cinemas now.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer from Melbourne. He also works as an editor and a film festival programmer while tweeting too much at @glenndunks.