
#Sequel to independence day resurgence awesome free#
As half the free world rips itself apart, there’s something magnificent in watching humanity team up against a common enemy. So while this is utter nonsense for much of its runtime, overstuffed with people you will struggle to care about, and while its finale shamelessly begs a sequel (like Steven Hiller, Emmerich apparently ain’t heard no fat lady), there’s still a (molten) core of wild entertainment beneath the hokum.

And he has an eye for arresting visuals – an alien ship squatting across half the planet – that still sets him apart. He builds tension before the attack, and then unleashes devastation on a far greater level than you imagined, better than almost all his imitators. When the action really begins, there are moments that remind you Emmerich did not earn the title of Master of Disaster because Anonymous was so awful.

But there’s still something exhilarating in Resurgence despite the mess. With about half as many speaking roles, it would have been twice as good.Īside from Goldblum (“They always go for the landmarks”) and a few moments from Brent Spiner’s mad scientist, it’s not nearly as funny as the original either. Interesting prospects, like Charlotte Gainsbourg’s xenopsychologist and Deobia Oparei’s alien-fighting warlord, are brushed aside in favour of two uninteresting geeky boys who never earn their screentime. Among the newcomers, Maika Monroe’s Abigail Whitmore and Rain (Chinese actress Angelababy) are smokin’ hot pilots – and that’s about the extent of their character and almost all their lines. The film suffers hugely from the lack of the Will Smith charisma tornado, though Bill Pullman’s former President neatly combines his own previous role with the Randy Quaid role of ranting doomsayer.

Emmerich wooed back the original cast with few exceptions (Margaret Colin’s White House staffer isn’t mentioned) but many of them are given as little to do as the new kids.Įven Jeff Goldblum, who injects cool into every frame in which he appears as the head of Earth’s defence project, doesn’t get close to enough screen time. Liam Hemsworth isn’t actually bad as a hot-tempered hotshot pilot, and Jessie Usher’s Dylan Hiller might have been a worthy heir to his stepfather, Will Smith’s Steve Hiller, with a bit more time to shine, but they’re swept away in a tidal-wave of underdeveloped supporting characters. This singular vessel apparently destroys Asia so thoroughly in the first act that no-one refers to the devastation of the continent ever again.įrom a filmmaking point of view, however, the big problem is that most of humanity’s surviving population has been recruited to appear onscreen. Unfortunately, they didn’t plan for a ship the size of the Atlantic, the fools. Luckily, humanity has spent 20 years preparing for this, co-opting the crashed alien technology into new weapons.
