Independence Day: Resurgence

Director Roland Emmerich has provided a sequel to the 1996 film that is the bastardized Rip Van Winkle of all space invaders movies. On the 20th anniversary of defeating the alien threat, a 3,000-mile-in-diameter spacecraft takes out Earth’s space defenses and proceeds to steal Earth’s molten core! But, the same people (Jeff Goldblum, Brent Spiner and Bill Pullman) just ain’t having it! Thanks to refitted alien technologies and world unity (despots and Third World ganglords), once a white space sphere is recovered that looks straight out of Pokémon, there’s no holding us back! Simplistic, almost knuckle-dragging enunciations deliver such powerful dialog as: “Take this!” or the ever potent “It’s getting dicey!” When London is completely destroyed one character mournfully announces, “My mom lived in London,” to which Jeff Goldblum says, “Maybe she got out!” To where, exactly? Escaping from a decimated city doesn’t leave too many options! Not only has the majority of the cast been mothball extracted but even the younger cast members are linked genetically, like Jessie T. Usher plays Will Smith’s son and Maika Monroe is Pullman’s grown up daughter. I guess the majority of the Earth’s population has just accepted that these are the ONLY people who can successfully run things??? Both dumber and a whole lot less dynamic than most any 1950s space invasion movie with cabbage-headed creatures, this overly dramatic disaster flick features a school bus full of kids being chased by an insectoid space queen at Area 51…which would’ve made for a memorable Super Bowl commercial for Raid but just looks hokey here!

[PG-13]