Independence Day (1996) - Film Review
Starring: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum & Vivica A. Fox
Screenplay: Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich
Directed By: Roland Emmerich
Certificate: 12
Now
more than twenty years since its original release, Independence
Day is a film that's got quite the success and legacy behind
it. Its heavy use of special effects and disaster imagery became
partly responsible for the resurgence of sci-fi in the mid-90s, and
the film became such a big deal that it became the highest-grossing
film of 1996. In fact, it was once the second highest-grossing film
of all time (though it has since been overtaken), behind only
Jurassic Park. To this day, it seems to still be one of
these films whose mere mention brings back fun memories and raises a
smile, but does the film actually live up to its legacy?
July
2nd 1996, and an alien mothership arrives in Earth's
orbit, deploying a fleet of assault saucers over Earth's major
cities. With fears that the aliens are hostile, American President
Thomas J. Whitmore orders an evacuation of the White House and cities
potentially under threat. However, the order comes too late, and
cities across America and the world are destroyed by the aliens. The
following day, the world's leaders begin organizing counterattacks on
the alien forces, with Whitmore organizing the resistance
from the Nevada desert, ready for the 4th July –
Independence Day.
If
I had to sum up Independence Day in just a few words,
the first ones that would come to my mind would probably be …
goofy, silly, clichéd … but incredibly fun. This is the epitome of
summer blockbuster entertainment – the filmmakers seem to know that
and rather than shy away from it, they embrace it and wear it like a
badge. There's so much in this film that's cheesy and over the top,
but somehow that's part of its charm. You get a few moments and a
couple of characters that don't quite click with me, particularly the
eccentric and nowhere near as funny as was probably intended Russell,
but on the whole, there's more hits than misses. Just look at moments
like Bill Pullman's presidential speech about 'independence': it's
become much-loved and imitated and I can see why. I'd imagine that
many of us can agree it's clichéd and corny, but there's something so
earnest about the way it's written and delivered that makes it work.
The same goes for a lot of the lines Will Smith's Captain Steven
Miller gets given, especially the image of him sat on a crashed alien
pod, having just punched the alien inside, with a cigar in his mouth
and saying “Now that's what I call a close encounter”. But
as brilliant as these moments are, it's not what gets me to show any
care or interest in these characters, but the smaller moments
instead. The scene where the president spends his last moments with
his wife in the hospital are genuinely emotional and well done.
Meanwhile, the relationship that we see between Hiller and his wife
in the first act helps us get invested in his character, you've got
the cute kid to go along with it and it all builds the happy ending
up even further.
Watching Independence Day is also a way of realizing that there's a strange sense of fun to be had from seeing famous landmarks get so spectacularly destroyed on the big screen. It sounds weird and messed up, but that shot of the White House being consumed in inferno is just glorious. Of course after such horrific events like 9/11, it took a while before other films could follow properly in Independence Day's footsteps of destroying famous landmarks; although more recently films like White House Down, Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen have picked up the trend again (but to nowhere near as good an effect). There's something about Independence Day that almost feels kind of innocent. Even with all the destruction and death that comes with the aliens attack, it still feels hopeful and optimistic of things getting better – something that part of me misses from blockbusters. Obviously in some respects the world has become a much darker place since 1996, so it's understandable that more modern films have mirrored these darker turns in events. But maybe we could do with injecting some fun and light-heartedness back into the blockbusters.
I
think part of the reason people and new audiences can still enjoy
Independence Day comes from the fact that more than
twenty years later, its effects work still holds up. The film was
celebrated for its visuals when it was first released, even taking
home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and given how visually
brilliant this film looks, I can completely understand why. The fiery
destruction of the cities, the alien spaceships, the aerial battle
sequences, and even the aliens themselves are all really well
accomplished effects. Fair dos, not all of it is original (I'll talk
more about that in a bit), but for what it is, it looks pretty good.
Independence Day was made on a budget of $75m, a pretty
healthy film budget for 1996, and it makes the most of it. The
extensive pyrotechnics work, the model design on things like the
alien spaceships and landmarks like the White House, it's all pretty
seamless when put together.
But
as fun and entertaining as Independence Day is, it's
FAR from being a perfect movie and it has its fair share of problems.
I've no issue with it being fairly simplistic and straightforward,
but other things such as the overdone sense of patriotism can stifle
things. With a title like Independence Day, I suppose I
should have expected this, but sometimes the nationalistic tones come
across with such strength that it feels a bit like it has its own
head up its arse. Now I don't want to open up a can of worms by
getting into a debate about patriotism or being proud of your
country, but just in case let me make it clear: I don't have a
problem with being proud of your own country. Despite its MANY
faults, I'm still proud to live in the UK – large parts of its
history aren't worth being proud of, neither is its recent decision
to leave the EU, yet the contributions and advances its made in the
world most definitely are. However, there has to be a point where you
draw the line, and for me, Independence Day's
overwhelming sense of nationalism oversteps that line. The film is
supposed to be about a global invasion, and humanity coming together
to defeat a common enemy, and even though there's some great diversity
among the cast, it's hard for that message to come through when about
98% of the film takes place strictly in America, with America making
all the big decisions. Even in the very brief moments that we don
venture outside America, the people we see from other countries are
some of the most stereotypical I've ever seen. The British soldiers
sound like they've just wandered off the set of Downton Abbey,
while anything we see from countries in Africa or the Middle East is
just mind-numbingly stereotypical.
Going
back to a point I made earlier, there's also a somewhat lack of
imagination behind the aliens and their invasion fleet. A lot of the
imagery in the film feels like an amalgamation of what other films
have already done, such as the massive disc-shaped spaceships
hovering over the cities, the fallen Statue of Liberty, as well as
the spaceship and fighter jet dog fights that feel borrowed from Star
Wars. The reveal of the aliens themselves also proves
underwhelming after such a huge amount of build-up. They have a
mothership a quarter the size of the Moon hovering above Earth,
fifteen-mile wide discs hanging above different cities, yet the
aliens honestly feel like one of the weakest parts of the movie.
Their design doesn't help either, as it feels like a very
poorly-disguised rip-off of the xenomorphs from Alien,
as well as containing a little bit of Predator too. As
fantastic as everything may look in Independence Day,
to say that it's also original just isn't true at all.
Overall,
Independence Day isn't a film that's going to become
revered for its innovation and risk-taking, nor is it about to be
studied and debated by film scholars in years to come. However, it
does what it sets out to fairly well and it's undoubtedly a whole lot
of fun. Corny and clichéd as hell, some brilliant if unoriginal
effects work and entertaining throughout, Independence Day is
some great mindless action cinema. With actors like Will Smith and
Jeff Goldblum in their 90s prime as well, this is a decent film and
it's not hard to see why it's become loved by its fans.
Independence Day
6/10