Sure, there are spaceships and Earth has a second military defense base on the moon, along with an interconnected series of laser satellite cannons in orbit. Ever since the War of 1996, global militaries have been using alien technology to bolster new defenses for when humanity’s tentacular nemeses would one day return. That’s because, if you find yourself able to wade through the warp-speed deluge of table-setting and immediate action that kicks Resurgence off, you might notice that the film’s premise is thoroughly horrifying. (Read: Independence Day Turns 20: Revisiting Its Weird, United, American World) Instead, it gives off the vibe of a fan convention that only got the secondary cast and a reluctant big name or two to come together, to go through the motions once more.
Resurgence fails to recapture any of these in any satisfying way over the vast majority of its runtime, and even the landmark-smashing explosions on which the first film was sold are in unexpectedly short supply. Across the board, the five (!) credited screenwriters’ approach to the material suggests a broad misunderstanding of what audiences found appealing about the original film: the sense of scale, the thrilling CG dogfights, the zealous dedication to creating some kind of investment in the film’s sprawling cast of characters. Independence Day: Resurgence is a curiously loud and ugly beast of a sequel.
Because Independence Day: Resurgence is here, two decades after its mega-hit predecessor, to trade on nostalgia in ways that come off as aggressively strained, even by modern standards. Like it to the point where a sequel opening with flashes of it and returning to it in multiple allusive reminders throughout is all you need to get heated under the collar about a franchise follow-up.
Remember that speech Bill Pullman gave in Independence Day, the one about how we’re going to live on and we’re going to survive? Hopefully, you really, really like that speech.
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