Independence Day came out at a time before the new Star Wars series was underway, before the disaster flicks such as Armageddon, Volcano, Titanic, Deep Impact, Godzilla, or Dante's Peak, and before Will Smith's career as a leading man had truly taken off. So it did well at the box office and, at the time, it seemed to me like it was a heck of a great movie.
But time has a funny way of eroding the pedestal on which we perch summertime blockbusters, and over the past few years, it has played for me more like a passable B movie than as the entertaining action movie I once believed it to be. This has to be a direct result of the screenplay itself, which introduces no less than 20 cast members in the first 20 minutes, and who therefore get categorized into stereotypes for easier memory recall whenever we check back on their progress. In hindsight, it's a rather offending and clumsy maneuver that causes discomfort in its over-reliance on stale clichés.
Things kick off in an ominous fashion, as objects are detected near the moon and they're heading towards Planet Earth (cue R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It" playing on the radio at the observatory). The shadows are, of course, beings from somewhere out there, and these are their big ships making their way into the atmosphere, conveniently stopping directly above many of the world's biggest landmarks. Only one man in the entire United States, a cable guy named David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum as himself), thinks this armada of ships which are hovering above strategic locations could actually have war-like motives in mind. Good thing he used to be married to the President's advisor! Of course, he simply can't reach her by telephone so he has to drive to Washington to warn her about the impending countdown to destruction. Thank goodness he's got his dad to drive him (Judd Hirsch), and that the President (Bill Pullman) has time to walk out of a strategical debriefing meeting to hear him out inside the Oval Office. They leave the White House just in the nick of time, as big explosions terrorize the globe.
Cut to flight pilot Will Smith. He's engaged to a single mom who unnecessarily happens to be an exotic dancer (Vivica A. Fox). Smith and his friend Harry Connick Jr. (!) lead the primary attack against the alien ships. And I guess I should mention that Randy Quaid plays an aircrop duster with a family who is disappointed in him, James Rebhorn is the Chief of Defense advisor we're meant to hate, and Brent Spiner is an Area 51 scientist who doesn't get out much.
The initial special effects, when the aliens first enter the atmosphere, are pretty cool, but the stuff with the smaller mini-ships are more ho-hum than I originally remembered. There is more to write about this film, but it's probably not worth the effort. So I will stop now.
