"On behalf of the people of Earth: happy Fourth of July."
Hello everyone!
This Tuesday I'm finally back with a regular movie review, and I picked a slightly older one for this post, although 'older' is certainly a subjective term.
In better words, it just isn't recent, and that's that.
But of course once the first trailers started coming in and I even realized there would be a sequel to the highly amusing and pretty awesome Independence Day where I laugh, continuously, whenever Will Smith has to drag the dread-lock alien across the desert after welcoming it to Earth, I was on the edge of my seat.
Especially as it was announced old favourites would be making a comeback to the big screen, although sadly sans Smith. I can't remember what the reasons for his decline were at the time, but we WOULD get his son, at least. Movie-wise that is.
So how about I stop jabbering and start talking about Independence Day: Resurgence instead?
If we briefly recall what happened way back in the first movie twenty odd years ago: a race of aliens decided to come and hunker down on Earth and generally make a nuisance of themselves. The then-president, played by Bill Pullman, ordered an attack on this invading species, while pilot Will Smith and cooky scientist Jeff Goldblum took off in an actual alien spaceship, loaded a virus into the mothership's system, and so stopped the Apocalypse, pretty much.
Twenty years later, Earth is preparing to celebrate Independence Day, happily safe in their assumption that all is well. (To "encourage" this thinking see the original ID poster right here, and for a comparison with the new one, click here.)
Of course, if Jeff Goldblum is in this movie, you better believe all is NOT well.
Namely, he's down in Africa at the moment, hunting some weird symbols he's seen before and that seem to be telling a story, in the process meeting up with this weird warlord who says that, even before the massive invasion twenty years ago, he and his people learned how to hunt and kill the aliens, who seemed to think humans would just be wild animals and let them do their thing.
Er, colour me confused, but let's roll with it, because Goldblum's ex-girlfriend also explains that she's been seeing these symbols in different areas, like someone's trying to warn the people of today about what happened and what could still happen ...
You know, while Liam Hemsworth & Co are busy flying around on the Moon where, for some reason, Earth now has an outpost and they're the first ones to get an inkling of something being wrong when an orb-like ship smashes into the Moon's surface.
Well let's be fair first - the orb is SPOTTED, and because it doesn't respond, the American president orders it shot down and brought to Earth for further investigation.
What no one knows - that is, no one but unfortunate Goldblum who probably thinks he's way too old to have to live through TWO invasions in one lifetime - is that the orb is the least of their problems, because HONEY, I'M HOME!
Remember that big alien mothership from movie one?
IT'S BACK.
It just took them twenty years to get to Earth to exact their revenge. Bill Pulman's been trying to warn everyone about it forever, but did anyone listen? OF COURSE NOT.
Now it's kind of too late, even though that weird scientist who got possessed by an alien in movie one and was then in a coma for twenty years until waking up right before the aliens arrive wasn't taken seriously.
Big problem, guys: you really should listen to your elders.
The nations decide to try and take the mother ship out with nukes, because, you know, worst thing on the planet is bound to kill the aliens, right?
Ha, ha. Wrong.
No such luck as the team of young pilots gets stuck inside the mother ship, which hasn't actually suffered any real damage, but it's definitely coming for the orb ...
Back up there.
The orb they recovered from the crashed first ship is actually a sentient being, explaining that it's been secreting and saving civilisations from these Hives since forever, that if it's destroyed, pretty much the universe as we know it will come to an end, because these Hives know only how to conquer, not rule.
Okay then.
Time for a distraction plan: Bill Pullman is once again fitted into a pilot's suit, just like twenty years ago, but this time he'll be flying the distraction plane, trying to pierce through the shield of the Hive's Queen - on the theory that, if the Queen is destroyed, the entire Hive will collapse.
It's a good plan, until the part where poor Bill Pullman gets, well, pulverized.
His daughter is rightly pissed off, going in for another pass to shoot at the shield as everyone desperately scrambles and tries not to wail in a panic.
But wait! We've forgotten the pilots caught in the mothership.
Led by Liam Hemsworth (whose character, by the way, wants to marry the president's daughter and move in with her in their own house and the whole nine yards), they break away from the swarm and help defeat the Queen, which effectively terminates the current threat.
Once again, Independence Day is saved just in time to properly celebrate and make William Fichtner's general character the new president. Not to mention, the Orb seems to have information on how to find the Hives and destroy them for good.
Movie three, anyone?
Maybe then we can learn what happens to the bus full of orphans Goldblum's character's father picked up along the way of trying to save himself and his son.
All in all, the movie wasn't as exciting for me as the trailers and marketing made it out. Maybe because I had such high expectations, but honestly, I also am not usually fazed by Liam Hemsworth, either. My friends tend to need buckets to catch their drool in whenever he's mentioned in conversation, but me? Eh. I'd take his brother Chris any day, thank you very much.
And it kind of just wasn't the same without an older, crankier Will Smith hissing insults and curses at the aliens - or smoking his victory cigar after the fat lady finished singing.
It was an enjoyable movie, but not as memorable as the first one - which I need to rewatch sometime.
Until next time, if there is a next Independence Day!
xx
*images and video not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment