Well, that was silly! But to be honest, not much sillier than the first part, more than twenty years ago. And surely not sillier than let’s say «X-Men: Apocalypse».
I must say I really enjoyed «Independence Day: Resurgence».
And why shouldn’t I? In a sense it’s mostly an almost shot for shot remake of the original. With a lot less charm because of the lack of the impressive practical effects from back then which where replaced by state of the art, but still kinda copy and paste CGI (which isn’t improved by the green screen and compositing quality that somehow seemed to be stuck back in the nineties).
I admit I give the movie a lot of slack because its predecessor was one of the first high concept «let’s just blow some shit up» movies I loved as a child, which I think has to be given credit.
And I liked the characters: There’s of course Goldblum, Pullman and Spiner who I just loved the shit out of (minus one really too silly moment that I loathed). The second Hemsworth and the one and only William Fichtner who really wears those kind of characters like a glove. And I reeaally loved what they did to poor Will Smith (which is kinda mean, but I guess the second part of the movie that really put him on the map has somehow the right to make fun of his arrogance, in a way.) And somehow they also dragged Charlotte Gainsbourg into this which surprisingly didn’t hurt the movie any more than some other side characters I think they could’ve skipped.
Though for today’s standards the whole movie is kind of «been there, done that», I really liked this one, mostly because it doesn’t take itself serious at all, serves the fans with a big plate of references to the original, the one movie that startet it all back then as one of the first of its kind of that era.
As a fun action movie, it never reaches the quality of «Captain America 3 – Civil War» or to be honest, any of the Marvel Movies, but «ID4» 2 never annoyed me, because it doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t. It knows that it’s silly and just goes with it; takes all its stupidity, ludicrous one-liners, over-the-top patriotism and heroism and shoves it up my ass right up to my pleasure center (which normally is not my preferred path of delivery).
If you’re old enough to have enjoyed the first one, I think you’ll like this one. If not, I’m not so sure, because there where a lot better films in the meantime that have done the same thing, much better (e.g. «Pacific Rim»).
And correct me if I’m wrong. But didn’t I spot a reference to «Citizen Kane» in the last act?! I sure loved the boldness in doing that.
This is neat, too: http://www.independencedaymystreet.com
And of course: Aurora.