Subject: REVIEW: INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Michael Redman)
Date: 13 Jul 1996 13:54:32 GMT

INDEPENDENCE DAY
                       A film review by Michael Redman
                        Copyright 1996 Michael Redman

***1/2  (out of ****)

First of all, there are several different things going on here, all 
separate but connected parts of the whole. There is "ID4: The Movie", 
"ID4: The Ride", and lest we forget, "ID4: The Hype And Cash Machine".

Unless you've been in a coma for the past few months or don't have cable 
and watch only PBS, you've been exposed to the unprecedented advertising 
campaign. When you heard the words "Independence Day", it was a safe bet 
they weren't talking about the holiday. Rarely has any film aroused such 
pre-release excitement.

So exciting that it generated over $94 million during its first 5 1/2 
days of release. So exciting that dozens of theaters around the country 
were showing 24 hour screenings for the first few days: shows at 1:30am, 
4:00am, 6:30am. So exciting that tickets were sold out hours before the 
shows to people camping in line with big coolers and sleeping bags. No 
matter how good the movie turned out to be, the hype was a work of art 
itself.

Somehow Fox even arranged for a massive power black-out up and down the 
west coast on opening night.

"ID4: The Ride"? It's phenomenal! Some films are more like amusement 
park thrillers than cinema and this is one of the best of that genre. 
Just take your seat, strap in and hold on. Monitor your cola consumption 
because the roller coaster doesn't provide many breaks. One of the marks 
of audience involvement is their relationship with their bladders: how 
casually they take their trips to the restroom. Here, people are 
__sprinting__ to and from the john so as not to miss anything.

There's enough stuff blown up and smashed and burned to a crisp to 
satisfy any summer action junkie. Jet fighters zooming here and there, 
alien death rays trashing all the world's major cities, massive 
devastation on a global scale! It's perfect! The best science fiction 
ride since the "Star Wars" films.

And then there's that pesky "ID4: The Movie" thing. There are a few 
problems. There's nothing new here. The producers have ripped off dozens 
of films ("Close Encounters", "Star Wars", "War Of The Worlds", "The 
Right Stuff", "Dr. Strangelove", "Jurassic Park", "The Day The Earth 
Stood Still" and on and on and on), word for word, scene for scene. 
During one dogfight scene with Will Smith being chased through canyons 
by an alien ship, I was sure I was about to hear "Use the Force, Will. 
Use the Force!"

I believe that kinder reviewers call these scenes "homages", but it's an 
odd film that can succeed with nothing but homages.

Fortunately "ID4" is that odd film. All of the pieces are well crafted 
into a quilt that, while it isn't original, sure does its job.

The casting is top-notch in most cases. The Fresh Prince is surprisingly 
refreshing as the wise-cracking jet pilot who becomes earth's last hope. 
Jeff Goldblum as the computer wiz who figures it all out works well with 
Judd Hirsch, his kibitzing dad. Randy Quaid, Harvey Fierstein and Harry 
Connick, Jr., among dozens of others, are grand. Bill Pullman as the 
Clintonesque president is something of a dead fish (or is that lame 
duck?), but then, we expect most of our politicians to behave that way.

See it. You'll have to forget about any attempt to look at the film 
intellectually, but let it possess your body and take over. You'll love 
it!

[This originally appeared in "The Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, 
Indiana, 7/11/96. Michael Redman can be reached at [email-masked]]