Independence Day (1996)

 

Fox picked this one for their 75^th Anniversary set, no doubt based on the continued popularity it has enjoyed since its release over 20 years ago. (They even tried to reboot it as a franchise in 2015.) Let’s see if it’s meritorious…

Independence Day was Fox’s most hyped-up release for the 4^th of July weekend of 1996 (Coincidence? I think not.) Without a whole heck of a lot of competition, it became in instant commercial hit. Fox must’ve breathed a sigh of relief; after al, it had been quite a while since we had a real bona fide alien invasion movie. One, of course, calls to mind the classics from the 50s – The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds – films loaded with political metaphor but yet a lot of cheesy fun. They had all the trademarks f the decade’s sci-fi genre: stilted acting, dime-store sets and effects, incredible-but-we-don’t-care storylines, and tongue firmly planted inside cheek to make the whole thing work.

Independence Day is a sci-fi film, yes, but it’s hardly cheesy. It’s a 100-million-dollar extravaganza that takes itself seriously, very seriously. I mean, we’re pretty much talking about the end of the world here, and we get explosions, explosions and more explosions to drive the point home. The aliens have arrived and they don’t even have the time to send a cute robot like Gorp to send a message. They arrive with enough firepower to decimate every city on the globe, and America has to respond with everything its got – cruise missiles, fighter jets and even (gasp) nuclear weapons. This is what a visit from aliens’ looks like in 1996: nothing short of World War III.

And actually, when you look at it, Independence Day isn’t really like those sci-fi films fro the 50s at all. It’s structured more like a war movie, a big ensemble war movie like The Longest Day or Tora, Tora, Tora or The Winds of War, or for that matter a big disaster movie with a cast of thousands. (You know the kind with a movie poster that has all those boxes at the bottom? Oh, sorry millennials, you don’t remember.) In the beginning we get about six or seven story lines involving a dozen people or so from all across the nation, and then they come together once the shit hits the fan. I remember some critics attacking Day’s absence of any kind of dynamic or even characterized villains, but quite frankly it’s an irrelevant criticism. Independence Day has no desire to flesh out its baddies any more than most old WWII epics distinguished the Nazi’s, or than Irwin Allen personified a raging skyscraper fire.

So then we must judge the film on its own merits. How does it do as a modern day example of one of those “box” movies?

Meh.

I mean, it starts out promising. We start juggling stories right at the very beginning, and they are:

·   Jeff Goldbloom, a MIT scientist, who has discovered a signal from outer space, which he determines to be some sort of countdown. With his father (Judd Hirsch) in tow, he gains access to the Oval Office thanks to his former wife, a White House Communications Director.

·   Bill Paxton, the President of the United States, who has the awesome responsibility of keeping the country cool and composed whilst a mega-monolithic mothership hovers perniciously over the nation’s capital. He is aided by a straight thinking general (Robert Loggia) and sniveling, ill-advising Secretary of Defense.

·   Will Smith as a US air force pilot engaged to a stripper living in Las Vegas.

·   Randy Quaid as an alcoholic, crop-dusting Vietnam Vet on the outs with his biolgica children but making an attempt to reconnect. The town laughs at him and even makes him believe he was once abducted by aliens.

Well, remember that countdown? It’s not to ring in the New Year; the aliens use it to calibrate their mass destruction of every major American city, and millions perish in the ghastly infernos. The president has his crew narrowly escape aboard Air Fore One, and Smith’s stripper wife and children avert death themselves (the First Lady isn’t quite so lucky). Time for a counterattack, but the US armed forces discovers it’s firepower is no match for the aliens’ more advanced technology. Even nuclear weapons have no effect (yup, they used them, despite Goldbloom’s admonitions). The White House starts the blame game, and Hirsch even invokes Roswell as evidence that the government knew about the aliens’ last visit but did nothing about it. Wait a minute!

It turns out that not only did this happen but it could be of some use in the current situation. The daffy scientist in charge of the Roswell case has kept intact the original spaceship, and now has access to a live E.T. thanks to Smith. He seems a little too weird and a little too “excited” with all this chaos, so you know he’s gonna perish soon (he does, when he tries to operate on an alien that… put it his way… does not want to be operated on. But Goldbloom hatches a plan to use the Rosewell craft to infect the aliens with a cold virus, thereby debilitating their shields for just enough time to launch a full-frontal attack. The plan works, culminating in a Quaid’s self-sacrificial attack on the mothership, rendering the rest of the alien fleet completely powerless. The pres decreees that Independence Day shall henceforth be celebrated as a worldwide day of freedom, not from tyranny or oppression, but from annihilation. Hmmm, isn’t that just called…. survival?

Independence Day has a lot going for it. It’s well-paced and does a good job of shuffling back and forth through its bevy of stars. And it’s definitely highlighted by some noteworthy performances. Pullman plays a remarkably good job of playing the president as everyman – a regular Joe trying to lead the Free Word with all the foibles and insecurities of you or I. In one scene in which he must comfort his dying wife by lying, he transcends, and elevates, the material. And the double-team of nebbish Jeff Goldbloom and his kvetching dad as played by Judd Hirsh offers just the right amount of idiosyncratic charm to alleviate the intensity of their situation at just the right movements.

But for all of its aspirations and lofty intentions, Independence Day just feels empty. At the end of its bloated 2 ½ hour running time, and the fireworks are popping and the flags are waving, you’re left with the feeling of not feeling more. Sure, you can blame the predictable outcome or the mostly flat and sometimes overwrought characterizations, but I think this particular shortcoming has more to do with direction. Roland Emmerich, at the helm, lacks the sense of urgency that a director like James Cameron could impart (and it doesn’t help that his special effects look mostly shoddy either). Ironic, given the fact that most of the earth is destroyed here, but it’s destroyed by nameless slimeballs, and no real reason is given for their havoc, either (it’s briefly explained that they want to use up our natural resources). Sure, this counteracts my claim that their namelessness shouldn’t matter, but maybe it does for the sake of creating a hateful villain. All In know is, I wasn’t exactly as white-knuckle as I wished I were.

Still, it’s watchable, but it won’t go on my list of classics. See it once and get it over with, and don’t expect too, too much.

Rating:  ***