Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Will Smith, Brent Spiner, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid, Vivica A. Fox, Adam Baldwin, Bill Pullman, Mary McDonnell
Tagline: "We've always believed we weren't alone. Pretty soon, we'll wish we were."
Random Trivia: Adam Baldwin is NOT one of the Baldwin brothers. Advanced Screening prints of the movie were labeled Dutch 2. Dutch starred Ed O'Neill. Ed O'Neill played Al Bundy. Al Bundy is God.
I had to go back and check, but yes - Independence Day was the start of the Will Smith summer blockbuster trend. This basically progressed from Independence Day - his first real blockbuster (I love it, but Bad Boys doesn't really count), went to Men in Black - another huge one - then tanked with Wild, Wild West. After that, the summer Smith movies became more and more sporadic. Men in Black II got a lukewarm reception at best. Bad Boys 2 was trashed by the critics, but fuck them, I loved it! I, Robot was more shiny than intelligent, not necessarily doing Asimov a great service. Shark Tale wasn't a summer movie (it came out in October), although it should have been. And then there was Hancock, which we've already covered on this site.
This was the one that started the little Will Smith summer trend, however. Every few years, a big release from Will, and an album or single at least. Remember Willenium? Or have you drank yourself stupid in an effort to forget it? How about the Wild Wild West single? Still looking up services willing to destroy bad memories?
Still, this isn't a Will Smith vehicle, and don't get me wrong - he's a talented guy, when his personality doesn't overtake the actual picture. But here, you've got a completely awesome ensemble cast with Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid, Brent Spiner, Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch. Female characters were seemingly thrown in as an afterthought, but this is a "lets blow up stuff real good" boys movie anyway.
Oh, and it's pretty much single-handedly responsible for the trend of blowing up famous landmarks in movies. You remember the White House going ka-BOOM. You know you do! It was freakin' cool.
Random stoned thought - I would have figured that 9/11 killed off the desire to see landmarks destroyed in movies, but Cloverfield proved me wrong...
The script leaves various bands of characters scattered throughout a country - and planet, but remember, this is AMERICA, and in AMERICA, only AMERICAN survivors matter, so that's all we really see aside from the odd mention - under attack by an alien intelligence. They're big, ugly, and their technology kicks our ass. Not to worry though - we have a tough President looking to live up to the moment (Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore), and a hot-shot fighter pilot (Smith as Capt. Steven Hiller), plus... Jeff Golblum as geeky David Levinson, and drunken redneck Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) somehow teaming up to save the day.
This is half about the survivors of a vicious alien invasion, and half Top Gun with spaceships vs. jet fighters. It scores one for paranoid conspiracy theorists by getting us inside "Area 51" when the existence of Groom Lake was just entering public consciousness, and it looked pretty.
But more importantly, stuff blowed up real good.
Seriously it's brain-dead action, yelling, screaming, shooting, running, everything that's been in every summer blockbuster since Jaws spawned the phenomenon. It rips heavily off of War of the Worlds, The X-Files (which at the time had the public primed for this sort of thing), Star Wars (with a couple hidden references to the original trilogy), etc.
What more can I say? Well, sadly, this actually comes off as intelligent and realistic compared to the schlock that comes out today... and Bill Pullman made a pretty cool President.
Oh yeah - the Independence Day Super Bowel Ad is credited with being the origin of movie ad extravaganzas during the big game. So it has that going for it too.
Overall Rating: Half-Baked (3 out of 5)
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