Despite all it�s faults, Hollywood occasionally produces a film so groundbreaking and so revolutionary that it resets the boundaries of modern cinema. The rest of the time it churns out tripe like this. Independence Day is your classic no-brains action film. Aliens are invading the world but thank God America is around to save Britain's arse again.
Featuring more clich�s than a Star Trek convention, writer Dean Devlin clearly didn�t give much thought to his characters. There�s the all-American superpilot (Smith), full of fast punches and even faster quips. And of course there�s the drunken hick (Quaid) who believes he was kidnapped by aliens (hah � how ludicrous you snigger) and turns out to be right. And would you have guessed it, he�s an ex-pilot who is now coming out of retirement to save the day. Actually you probably would have.
As Smith zaps yet another alien you can almost hear the whoops of delight from the American movie-going public, or even from Smith himself. One of the problems with crossover artists is that it alters your perception of them. After every kill I expect Smith to come out with something like �Yeah, woo, yeah, aha-aha, getting jiggy with it�. The brief parts offered to other nations, who apparently don�t much care if the world survives or not, simply draw on the most basic stereotypes available. The British officers are stiff upper lipped �Oh how simply spiffing. Good egg what?, oh rather� types and other major world powers fare little better.
A film like this was always going to require impressive effects and to its credit it certainly has them. The fight scenes are spectacular and a highlight of the film is seeing various American landmarks get wiped out by the wrongly maligned aliens who are frankly doing the world a favour. The climactic battle is excellent and at the time was compared to Star Wars. This would not be an unfair comparison, were it not that I couldn�t care less what happened. There is no real suspense. No-one could watch this film and doubt for even a second that the Yanks would emerge victorious (though I was really rooting for the aliens). On the downside, the director Roland Emmerich seems to have entirely forgotten that special effects alone can not sustain a movie and this is the reason for such a low mark.
I have probably been overly harsh to Independence Day as it is no worse than most blockbusters and provides reasonable entertainment in an unchallenging form. But is so frustrating that mindless popcorn movies like this make millions whilst quality films with a plot and some believable characters struggle to make ends meet. |
