The highest grossing movie of 1996, the first Independence Day earned its place in movie pop culture was such a visual treat on the big screen with all the famous landmarks getting destroyed by aliens and anchored by the wit and charisma of Will Smith, who in turn became a big global box office star after the film was released. It even won the Oscar for Visual Effects as well.
Twenty years later, here comes the sequel but it came too late. A lot of things had happened: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami of 2004 and Typhoon Haiyan among others. The fun factor of seeing earth destroyed just got weary as well on the big screen as movies with a similar premise and same pattern of destruction have came out among them the film director Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow in 2004 and 2009's 2012 thus erasing it's wow and novelty factor, Will Smith not returning for the sequel is heavily felt on the film's tone. Liam Hemsworth's love triangle with the daughter (Maika Monroe) of President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) in the first film and the son (Jessie T. Usher) of Smith's Captain Steven Hiller is straight out of Top Gun. Only Jeff Goldblum's dry wit saves the film from taking itself too seriously despite its popcorn appeal overtures.
However, if you are a fan of the first Independence Day, the first half of part 2 is well made. We the audience are reintroduced to the old characters as well as meeting the new ones. It's also refreshing to see acclaimed French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg star in her first big blockbuster Hollywood film. The second though, felt like an overlong Transformer film directed by Michael Bay that never made it to the final cut despite Independence Day 2's running time of 2 hours which is 25 minutes shorter than the first one. Skip the 3D, spend it on Finding Dory instead.
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