Independence Day: Resurgence

Twenty years ago, aliens attacked the Earth and the people of Earth joined forces, fought back, and won. Now, there's a cool new trend going around known as "reboot sequels," and so the aliens attacked again. And this time, everyone loses.

Every picture of Jeff just looks like varying stages of intense regret that he's involved in this film...

I went in with such low expectations. I tried to set them lower than they'd need to be... it wasn't far enough. Sadly, this film is even worse than I expected with a grand total of zero redeeming factors. I thought at least Jeff Goldblum would be one, but he's just not into the role, and that makes his presence more painful than singularly entertaining. Characters are usually my back-up redeeming factors, but actually none here fit the bill. Maika Monroe was probably closest since I forgot she was in the movie at all, but in the end all she did was make me want to watch The Guest again. Liam Hemsworth was the main character I guess, but he accomplished absolutely nothing.

There were just too many characters, what with the returning, aging cast, and new younger, cuter, less talented additions. The movie's focus was stretched so thinly over all those people that I wanted to send it on a very long holiday to Rivendell, poor thing. I'm pretty sure the only person who didn't return was Will Smith. (By the way, canon for Will Smith's character's death NOT accepted.) And I would say that half the characters were so useless they should have been cut out entirely, but the real truth is that every character was useless and deserving of being cut. Along with the whole movie.

Favorite moment: The Burj diving headfirst into the Thames.

The movie starts out horribly boringly as it tries to introduce the parallel earth that is utilizing the left-behind alien technology. That could have been the neatest part of the film, but instead the opportunity was wasted, and we had to deal with that near-disaster-on-the-moon-base opening -- the camp high point. And the lady President who was an actual idiot. The plot is just nothing but trite and uninspired nonsense. The good news is that it gets better as it goes along. The bad news is that's probably just by comparison of the beginning, which is bad, but has no aliens to distract us.

The alien stuff, of course, just goes over the top in an attempt to expand and improve on the original. And yes, the animation and CGI effects are better than the original's, but that was twenty years ago -- you don't get points for that. In the end I was just reminded of a lot of things. Weirdly, Clash of the Titans with that final battle, and Ender's Game. They weren't even evoking memories of good movies! The only positive that comes to mind is at least there was very little in it that I full-on hated. It's all garbage, but it never offended me. I'd rather be offended at something though, and have a little to love -- or at least like -- as well, instead of this lukewarm participation trophy drivel.

You didn't try at all!

Try -- and make a bad movie if it goes that way, but at least then you can get some respect for trying. Resurgence never made an effort at all. It's a bunch of nothing overfilled with nothing characters standing around looking bored in front of a cold, dead, overblown CGI backdrop. There were occasional moments where I saw glimpses of potential for something that could have been neat, but that's not even near close enough for cigars. And thanks to movie politics, none were smoked. That would have just been insulting.