Subject: REVIEW: INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)

From: [email-masked] (James Berardinelli)
Date: 4 Jul 1996 09:51:07 GMT

INDEPENDENCE DAY
                       A film review by James Berardinelli
                        Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli

RATING (0 TO 10): 5.5
Alternative Scale:  ** out of ****

United States, 1996
U.S. Release Date: 7/2/96 (wide)
Running Length: 2:22
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence, profanity)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Cast: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Margaret Colin, 
      Robert Loggia, Vivica Fox, Judd Hirsch, Mary McDonnell, 
      Randy Quaid, Brent Spiner, James Rebhorn, Harvey Fierstein, 
      Harry Connick Jr., Adam Baldwin
Director: Roland Emmerich
Producers: Dean Devlin 
Screenplay: Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich
Cinematography: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Music: David Arnold
U.S. Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox

     Credit the marketing masters at Twentieth Century Fox -- they've 
managed to make INDEPENDENCE DAY the most eagerly-anticipated motion 
picture of a potentially record-breaking summer.  Tantalizing shots of 
the White House and Empire State Building being destroyed by alien ships 
have been shown in multiplexes since last Christmas.  It's a saturation 
philosophy:  show the previews before every movie and tell people that 
this is "the event" of 1996, and they will come.  Whether INDEPENDENCE 
DAY takes in $30 million, $50 million, or $80 million during its first 
weekend is irrelevant -- it will make a huge splash.  Unfortunately, and 
perhaps not unexpectedly, it doesn't live up to the hype.  

     From the beginning, there have been reasons to doubt INDEPENDENCE 
DAY's creative foundation.  After all, it comes from Roland Emmerich and 
Dean Devlin, the team responsible for STARGATE, one of the most 
disappointing and derivative science fiction films of the decade.  
Theirs is not a pedigree to inspire confidence, and, as it turns out, 
INDEPENDENCE DAY is no better than STARGATE.  

     For mindless action, the first hour is right up there with TWISTER.  
The special effects are impressive and the movie is suitably noisy.  
But, this summer especially, we've had all we need of explosions and 
flashes; the fireworks have lost their zing.  Perhaps if INDEPENDENCE 
DAY had come out earlier, before all the tornadoes, flying dragons, 
Chunnel helicopter-and-train chases, Rail Guns, and escapes into 
Alcatraz, I might have welcomed it more warmly.  At this point, however, 
action -- even of the science fiction variety -- has become a stale, 
overused commodity.  Almost everyone loves chocolate, but, if you eat a 
lot of it, you start feeling sick.  I'm sure you understand the 
comparison.  

     Worse still, INDEPENDENCE DAY gets mired in syrupy, artificial 
character development, and this bogs down the entire middle act.  Once 
the aliens have blasted their way through New York, Los Angeles, and 
Washington, this film doesn't offer much in the way of compelling 
viewing.  With its hackneyed plot, feeble attempts at characterization, 
and predictable finale, the second half of INDEPENDENCE DAY becomes an 
extremely dull and lifeless affair.

     In case you haven't figured it out by now, the story centers around 
an alien invasion.  After emerging from the dark side of the moon, a 
dozen fifteen-mile diameter spaceships enter a hovering patterns over 
Earth's major cities.  In Los Angeles, a marine officer, Captain Steven 
Hiller (Will Smith), has been recalled from holiday leave to "kick 
E.T.'s butt."  In Washington, President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill 
Pullman) is concerned about creating a widespread panic by ordering 
evacuations.  And, in New York City, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) has 
just broken one of the aliens' secret codes, and it leads him to believe 
that an attack is imminent.  As it turns out, he's right, and the human 
race is soon embroiled in a desperate struggle to survive.  The aliens' 
ships are shielded, and nothing, not even nuclear weapons, can penetrate 
their defenses.   

     The excessive number of characters is in part responsible for the 
movie's unnecessarily long running time.  Had INDEPENDENCE DAY been a 
half hour shorter, it would have been more tightly paced and less 
tedious.  Among the superfluous characters are the First Lady (Mary 
McDonnell), a mentally unstable crop duster (Randy Quaid), and a sneaky 
Secretary of Defense (James Rebhorn).  Since these people have no 
dramatic impact, all they manage to do is eat up screen time.  

     Like STARGATE, INDEPENDENCE DAY cannibalizes heavily from past 
science fiction ventures, including THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, STAR 
WARS, STAR TREK, ALIEN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, V, THE X-FILES, and about 
another half-dozen TV programs and movies.  It's legitimate to question 
whether Emmerich and Devlin are capable of doing anything remotely 
original.  There's a distressing sameness and familiarity to both of 
their big budget science fiction extravaganzas.  

     It's useless to advise people not to see INDEPENDENCE DAY, so I'll 
issue a warning instead:  curb your enthusiasm and don't expect much.  
With suitably low expectations, you're likely not to be too 
disappointed, unless you make the mistake of actually thinking about 
what's taking place on-screen while it's going on.  The last half hour 
is built on a series of contrivances and implausibilities that even a 
six-year old could find serious flaw with, so be prepared to use the 
"brain off" switch.  But INDEPENDENCE DAY isn't about logic and 
intelligence.  It's about space battles, mass destruction, and a 
laughably "rousing" speech by the President.  This is a spectacle, pure 
and simple.  Unfortunately, because the film makers mistakenly tried to 
inject a load of weak dramatic elements, INDEPENDENCE DAY turns out to 
be overlong, overblown, and overdone.  For alien invasions this summer, 
give me THE ARRIVAL instead.  

- James Berardinelli
e-mail: [email-masked]
ReelViews web site: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin