Independence
Day 2 –
The Queen of Outer Space
The Queen of Outer Space
By Joe Viglione
Photo credit, Joe Viglione after the screening; looks like the film itself.
Independence Day: Resurgence is a beautifully crafted science fiction movie which cleverly goes back to the first film twenty years ago without retreading it the way Star Wars 7 copied Star Wars 4 which was actually Star Wars 1. The bizarre idea to keep the film away from the traditional critics' screenings sent a message that the film company - 20th Century Fox Film Corporation (production company and distributor for most of the world) felt it would be hammered by critics. Maybe it will be, but not this one.
Picture Zsa Zsa Gabor’s 1958 lady Talleah
fighting the “vicious queen” (of Venus) Laurie Mitchell’s Queen Yllana in the
Queen of Outer Space meets Sigourney Weaver fighting her own alien queen (from
Alien, of course) and you’ll get an idea where this film is going now that we’ve
seen the visitors face to face from the original Independence Day. That Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson had 20
years to prepare us (he didn’t do a very good job in that regard, but Goldblum’s
acting is much better in the sequel, perhaps his excellent work on Law &
Order: Criminal Intent let him know that his serious side without over doing it
brings some harmony to his characters,) and with an eye towards giving us some
new clever twists (most welcome and the true appeal of this fight with the Borg
meets Signourney Weaver’s aforementioned Alien) the bee/locust hybrid planet
harvester, straight out of the Fantastic Four’s Galactus character, returns for
a second go at earth.
There are more things to like about
Independence Day: Resurgence than to dislike and killing off Will Smith’s
character at the outset probably not a bad thing. Why?
Smith was omnipresent in sci-fi after Independence Day – 2004’s I,
Robot, 2007’s I Am Legend, and in each film you get…Will Smith. His mannerisms,
like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jack Nicholson, are a stamp that immediately
brands a film with the signature of the megastar. A Nicholson – being such a brilliant artist –
can break the mold and take himself out of his own persona and into something
else. When Nicholson fails to do so - the Joker in the Tim Burton Batman – you get
the Joker playing Jack Nicholson. Which
is why Heath Ledger’s chameleon act garnered him the Academy Award for the same
character, while being nominated for the Academy Award in Brokeback Mountain as
Ennis Del Mar. Where Ledger becomes
those characters and not himself is the amazing thing and now that we’ve
addressed the elephant in the room, the absence of Will Smith, we can look at
the rest of the Independence Day 2 experience.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Utilizing gravity as a weapon and pulling at
the earth, with humans being dragged up and tossed down while giving us bigger
spaceships and more weaponry, director Roland Emmerich doubles down on his
mastery of this genre. Yes, there are
still the cloying romantic interludes that James Cameron forced on us in
Titanic (which, actually, kept the young girls coming back to the movie which
helped deliver its unparalleled popularity) but this film and its followers are
not about romance. One would have
thought that Emmerich would have figured that out first time around.
The bromance between 26 year old Liam Hemsworth (look out Thor/Chris Hemsworth, baby brother gets his own blockbuster) and 25 year old Travis Tope has far more chemistry than their respective female “dates” in the film.
Hemsworth as Jake Morrison and his tongue-down-your-throat moments with hottie Maika Monroe (as President Whitmore’s daughter) are that forced romance, and oh how coincidental - a main character’s daughter hooking up with another main character. How original! It's these hokey distractions that take the wrecking ball to the film for sci fi fans who want you to get down to simply business.
So while Tope’s Charlie Miller character is awkwardly casting his eyes on a stunning lady pilot, Rain Lao (played by Hong Kong actress Angelababy) there is more real film chemistry between Hemsworth and Tope than with their lady friends. That it is subtle is what makes for a smoother personal sideline. Don’t think its unintentional, Emmerich is looking to conquer all peoples for his box office mojo, the same sex crowd, tribal leaders and that all-important China box office giving key roles to a variety of ethnic groups. A la Star Trek. Copying Star Trek in a deliberate and most clumsy way. Did it appear like Brent Spiner's character was a goner 20 years ago? Let’s bring Data back to life as Dr. Brakish Okum…oh - it was only a coma after he was strangled to death by the alien! Let’s have lights and gizmos just like Star Trek does, and let's add the insufferable Joey King as Sam (she was Channing Tatum’s daughter in Emmerich’s other recent destroy all cities flick, White House Down,) to emulate a flavor of what Randy Quaid was to the first flick. To do so bring back Judd Hirsch (who ended up on the excellent TV show Numbers after the first Independence Day. He’s less annoying 20 years later, but annoys enough in a fun way. Oh and kill off a main character so that the axiom “one death is a tragedy, thousands statistics” will resonate with the film goer. A hero from the first film gets a spectacular death scene, of course, which is also strained and too obvious.
The bromance between 26 year old Liam Hemsworth (look out Thor/Chris Hemsworth, baby brother gets his own blockbuster) and 25 year old Travis Tope has far more chemistry than their respective female “dates” in the film.
Hemsworth as Jake Morrison and his tongue-down-your-throat moments with hottie Maika Monroe (as President Whitmore’s daughter) are that forced romance, and oh how coincidental - a main character’s daughter hooking up with another main character. How original! It's these hokey distractions that take the wrecking ball to the film for sci fi fans who want you to get down to simply business.
So while Tope’s Charlie Miller character is awkwardly casting his eyes on a stunning lady pilot, Rain Lao (played by Hong Kong actress Angelababy) there is more real film chemistry between Hemsworth and Tope than with their lady friends. That it is subtle is what makes for a smoother personal sideline. Don’t think its unintentional, Emmerich is looking to conquer all peoples for his box office mojo, the same sex crowd, tribal leaders and that all-important China box office giving key roles to a variety of ethnic groups. A la Star Trek. Copying Star Trek in a deliberate and most clumsy way. Did it appear like Brent Spiner's character was a goner 20 years ago? Let’s bring Data back to life as Dr. Brakish Okum…oh - it was only a coma after he was strangled to death by the alien! Let’s have lights and gizmos just like Star Trek does, and let's add the insufferable Joey King as Sam (she was Channing Tatum’s daughter in Emmerich’s other recent destroy all cities flick, White House Down,) to emulate a flavor of what Randy Quaid was to the first flick. To do so bring back Judd Hirsch (who ended up on the excellent TV show Numbers after the first Independence Day. He’s less annoying 20 years later, but annoys enough in a fun way. Oh and kill off a main character so that the axiom “one death is a tragedy, thousands statistics” will resonate with the film goer. A hero from the first film gets a spectacular death scene, of course, which is also strained and too obvious.
Stepson of Steven Hiller (Will Smith's character) - Dylan Hiller
(Jessie T. Usher) – is as intentionally arrogant as Smith’s own Hiller was, and
should have been killed off, at least for his staged histrionics if nothing
else. Oceans roar, ray guns blast,
Robert Loggia makes a cameo and gets the “In Memoriam” at the end as he died
shortly after making the movie (too bad they didn’t really give him a sendoff
and blast him into oblivion for his stiff performance in the first Independence
Day,) and all in all, it’s a grand spectacle.
As stated above, when they copy scenes from the first film, be it Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore re-creating scenes that both Brent Spiner AND Randy Quaid enacted in the first outing, it is not as ho hum as the Star Wars reboot. This motion picture actually does for this Independence Day now-series what the recent Jurassic Park was able to achieve, without the thread of so many previous sequels behind it. Will it work at the box office? That’s the question. And the first results in say that they'd better hope China does some heavy lifting.
Had Roland Emmerich just played it straight without the obvious human interactions so in your face; had he also played it not straight by having a little more of that not-so-secret romance between Jake Morrison and Charlie Miller (Hemsworth and Tope; there’s enough joking and innuendo to let you know Emmerich threw that in for the gay audience anyway,) had the film just a touch more seriousness that Jurassic Park had, it would have been amazing. The other spacecraft is the big star of the show, teasing the audience in hopes it will get more play in the already proposed ID 3.
As stated above, when they copy scenes from the first film, be it Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore re-creating scenes that both Brent Spiner AND Randy Quaid enacted in the first outing, it is not as ho hum as the Star Wars reboot. This motion picture actually does for this Independence Day now-series what the recent Jurassic Park was able to achieve, without the thread of so many previous sequels behind it. Will it work at the box office? That’s the question. And the first results in say that they'd better hope China does some heavy lifting.
Had Roland Emmerich just played it straight without the obvious human interactions so in your face; had he also played it not straight by having a little more of that not-so-secret romance between Jake Morrison and Charlie Miller (Hemsworth and Tope; there’s enough joking and innuendo to let you know Emmerich threw that in for the gay audience anyway,) had the film just a touch more seriousness that Jurassic Park had, it would have been amazing. The other spacecraft is the big star of the show, teasing the audience in hopes it will get more play in the already proposed ID 3.
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The first thing I though within 30 minutes of the "tape rolling" was how 20th Century could have added the Fantastic Four to this and saved both franchises, but as the story unfolded the addition of the FF would have been over the top. What is clear is that Roland Emmerich needs to make the next Fantastic Four movie and use these brilliant special effects to let that franchise go where no Thing/Human Torch/Invisible Woman/Mr. Fantastic film has gone before. At the end of the day, the rumble seats in iMax, the gorgeous space-age spectacle, the clever aspects of the film, and that other referenced alien presence (which takes aim at the Star Wars market itself) is a very pleasant summer surprise we did not expect...especially due to 20th Century fearing the critics and pulling this film from pre-release date screenings. Yeah, that's right, most critics had to pay to get in to this one - thank God for senior discounts.
Resurgence (also the title of a Godzilla flick opening 7/29/16 in Japan) could have been so much more, but
as it stands, it is pretty darn good.