“That’s what I call a close encounter.”
INDEPENDENCE DAY
1996
Dir. Roland Emmerich
Screenplay: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich
With: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, James Redhorn, Harvey Fierstein, Brent Spiner
What is it about:
On July 2, 1996, The aliens came towards the Earth. July 3, 1996, the Liens attacked the Earth and destroyed every major city in the world. July 4, 1996, the populace of the Earth devises a massivce world-wode counter strike to save themselves from total annihilation!
Cephas’ notes and spoilers:
This film, while a great sci-fi flick in its own rights with amazing special effects - it is undeniably a tribute to some of Hollywood’s best sci-fi treats in history: STAR WARS, “V”, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and more! The plot is virtually exactly like that of “V” where he aliens come down to earth in large saucer shaped ships, float over every major city, and wants to take over the earth and destroy its people so that they can use up the planet’s resources and move on to other planets. Personally, while ID4 is more exciting and visually more fun, “V:” is smarter and more intelligent. And let’s not even get into that scene where Will Smith’s girlfriend, a stripper, rusn through the exploding tunnel, kicks open a mainenace door with her heels on, runs in it, and gets her dog inside and manages to be 100% free from harm even with the door open while people and cars and trucks are exploding, being thrown all about and incinerated at the exact same time in the exact same spot where she is. Or how about after she leaves the tunnel (no bodies inside) and there are some palm trees perfectly unharmed while the buildings next to them are burned out husks. And after we see every city destroyed in minutes in some very exciting beautifuly filmed scenes, there are NO DEAD BODIES in any of the aftermath scenes!!!! What happened to all th edead people!! You cannot kill off over 500 million people in the world and not have any dead bodies to be seen! Hell, they should have been littering the streets!!!
Cephas’ Rating:
RENT THIS FILM! What? After I just trashed the movie? Here is a list of what the film is about: terrible realism, no dead bodies, a plot virtualy exact to “V” and every fight scene choreographed from STAR WARS. Original? No. Yet, ID4 still gives you something fun to watch and exciting nonethless. So I say go rent it, you’ll enjoy it. Just don’t expect anything original. (I just hope that Emmerich’s next film - “GODZILLA” due Summer of 1998 is better. A lot of good hype on th efilm, but I already read the whole plot and it doesn’t excite me one bit. I’ll go see it though, hoping that Emmerich will deliver better than I expect.)