Subject: REVIEW: INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Ife Hsu)
Date: 4 Jul 1996 09:51:21 GMT

INDEPENDENCE DAY
                              [Spoilers]
                       A film review by Ife Hsu
                        Copyright 1996 Ife Hsu

Twentieth Century Fox Release (1996)
Running Time: Approx. 2:20 hr
Starring: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Robert
Loggia, Margaret Colin..
Director: Roland Emmerich

The idea of alien invasion brings endless plot possibilities.
Just describing the far advanced alien technology that permits
billions of light-year traveling might have filled up an entire
script.  But the makers of Independency Day (ID4) chosed to
focus on the lives of three characters: An US Marine fighter
pilot with aspirations of space-traveling (Will Smith), the
American President dealing with negative poll results (Bill
Pullman), and a MIT grad/expert in complex-system hacking (Jeff
Goldblum). 

ID4 covers a three day period (July 2nd thru 4th) observing the
alien arrival, its destructive colonization tactics, and the
world-wide military convergence that fights back the outer space
intruders.  Implausible and repeated coincidences bring the
three main characters together along with the people they care for. 

In the first two days, ID4 never looses grip to its grand
entrance. Many faces are introduced and quickly disposed with
minimal care. A single strike was all it took to annihilate New
York, Washington, and Los Angeles. So, as expected, the
counter-measures by the US military force proved meaningless and
ineffective. 

But in the final day, Smith, Pullman, and Goldblum are converged
to devise and execute a survival plan for Earth. At this stage,
ID4 loosely introduces a X-File-type government conspiracy and
covert operation. It narrows its premise to focus on this group
while sketches of the aliens and their technology are quickly
shown to satisfy audience's curiosity. 

The final strike is again built in total disbelief. World-wide
forces are joined together via primitive communication
mechanism; alien spacecraft can be intuitively piloted; alien's
defensive air force is no longer as agile and efficient; all
other areas in the planet have equivalent fire-power that can
prevail against the invaders.

Clearly, ID4 is not to be taken seriously. It is a feel-good
movie (despite millions of casualties) that is heavily grounded
on special-effects. There is simply not enough time to explain
much, and ID4 does not have the intention to do so anyway.  

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