So many Americans carved out time during the recent holiday weekend to watch a classic from a bygone era when blockbuster films couldn’t be canceled by a virus from a delicious pandolin. I am, of course, referring to the holiday’s namesake: Independence Day. Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum and Dennis Hopper combined anew last week to capture America’s imagination for almost the 25th straight year. Little did these people know, the greatest threat to Independence Day didn’t come from a distant planet. The call was coming from inside the house. From not the good people that brought you Independence Day, it’s a sequel so bad they couldn’t sell Will Smith on it, and Will Smith loves money. I watched Independence Day: Resurgence so you don’t have to. Here is my running diary:
It’s the opening sequence. This could best be described as a combination of that alien playing marbles with planets in MIB and Futurama’s concept of God. We get our first look at the alien queen watching Bill Pullman’s speech (I bet even she got goosebumps watching his speech. I mean c’mon) on alien tech that is at least 100 years better than what we see the aliens have when he is actually giving the speech in the first one. Did they send out the original group with crappy tech on purpose just to make it fair? Like how I keep telling my son if I am about to win the round of sequence so he can block me and not cry? I mean, they clearly had this better tech at the same time, since she is watching it in real time.
We see Will Smith’s picture in the White House. That’s it. I miss Will Smith. Not in this movie. I just miss him being a good actor. I am assuming he is not in this because of some other entanglement. New black guy alert. Based on how White House nepotism works in real life, this has to be Will Smith’s son. I am not even going to listen close enough to find out. Also, Vivica A Fox (Big Willie Style's GF/wife in the first one) shows up.
Lesser (Liam) Hemsworth appears. We see Lesser Hemsworth for the first time in what I am assuming is an advanced lunar rover that looks like a grasshopper. He seems to be finishing up the work of the astronauts from Armageddon (Independence Day’s worse cousin). Based on that movie, I assume Liam is an oil driller, since it is easier to teach oil drillers to be astronauts than to teach astronauts how to drill for oil. CGI overload. This is like watching Resident Evil… but not the movie. They have this very clear in the first 5 minutes: Lesser Hemsworth plays by his own rules. But Miley Cyrus already knows that.
They have rebuilt area 51 into… a place to house evil aliens just like before. I thought the point of using Area 51 is that no one knew it was there. The last time we … oh no, they dragged Jeff Goldblum into this. It’s times like this that I am reminded of the legendary Michael Caine quote, when they asked him if he ever saw the awful Jaws sequel he made and he said “No, but I have seen the house it bought for my mum. It’s fantastic.” Jeff has pulled up to what appears to be an alien slum in Africa, which is… odd. Did this just become District 9? No….District 9 was awesome, this is a trick. I think they are even using the same trucks from District 9. YOU WILL NOT FOOL ME. Now we discover the aliens were drilling for something in Africa (Vibranium?). So far this movie is 40 percent District 9 40 percent Armageddon 10 percent Independence day and 10 percent video game cut scenes.
Breaking news, Liam Hemsworth has a girlfriend who works in the White House. Since she is there, and the right age to be the president daughter, based on how White House nepo… never mind. We just added 10 percent of Pixels (which I will watch for you later). We are treated to a photo of Will Smith Jr., the President’s daughter and the Lesser Hemsworth. They were pilots together. I am sure they too can all fly an alien spacecraft with 0 training, especially Will Smith Jr. It’s in his Midichlorians or some bull shit.
We have reached the point in the movie where they tie in Chinese characters (dad and daughter) in a desperate hope to see this movie play in China to make up for the money it lost here. I’m guessing Free Tibet or Hong Kong isn’t going to come up in this movie. Will Jr. punches Lesser Hemsworth. Cuz we got baaaaad blood (oh no wait, that’s Taylor Swift). Lesser Hemsworth is playing with a tiny toy basketball like the one my son uses for his playschool hoop. Hollywood stars, they’re just like us!
Doc Oc from the first movie shows up. He has been in a coma since the last movie. And since I haven’t seen him since then, so has his career. I’m excited to see if they will play him as comic relief or the Dennis Hopper madman hero (editor’s note: neither?).
Back to District 9 and the slow destruction of Jeff Goldblum’s dignity. They appear to be in president Muntu’s house. Vote Muntu. We now have an unknown female who has been studying the aliens and learning their language. STAY AWAY FROM ARRIVAL. I was going to let the District 9 stuff go (actually nope), but don’t you dare touch Arrival. Amy Adams is a national treasure. If you're reading this and haven’t watched Arrival, stop reading this, watch Arrival and come back. You will need the strength from how good that is to get through this. I know I do.
Uh oh, we have opened an interstellar worm hole. If Matthew McConahey comes out of this I’m not sure if I will be angry or happy. A new alien ball has emerged from the hole. They have shot the alien in its ball. It now has a large hole in it so it looks exactly like a Death Star. I am fine with them ruining the Star Wars Prequels. Bill Pullman is back to fritter away his stature as an icon. He looks visually like he was able to convince the director to let him look like how he felt inside doing this.
Back to District 9. A tribal warrior gears up. The Ultimate Warrior will be joining Jeff Goldblum’s remaining dignity and discount Amy Adams into the battle. They get in a giant metal grasshopper with Lesser Hemsworth. They fly away from Wakanda or wherever into outer space. Jeff Goldblum starts yelling about flying. Remember in the first one where he was afraid of flying. I guess I do.
Jeff Goldblum’s very Jewish movie dad is selling a book about how he saved the world. I am not comfortable with what I suspect is a setup for some joke about Jews that would make Desean Jackson blush. I can see that being shoehorned into this movie.
The grasshopper moves through the debris from the old mother ship like its a game of Asteroids but with worse graphics. They are now on the dark side of the moon. I can’t hear the soundtrack, but there is no way they could afford Pink Floyd’s dark side of the moon. Our tribal warrior is covered with tattoos from every alien he killed. A knock off John Oliver marvels at them (KO John oliver has numerous other scenes in the movie that are so awful I will simply stop referencing him here).
Jeff Goldblum finds an egg shaped metal carton in the wreckage of the alien’s ball.
The president of earth is on stage, but Bill Pullman, who is clearly mentally ill, is allowed to cut in front of her and access the stage for no reason other than to issue an insane sounding warning to everyone then have a seizure. Why is it so easy for people to access microphones in movies?
Now Doc Oc is having a breakdown. A cloaked Klingon ship appears outside the moon. Only the Klingons have this kind of cloaking technology. This new alien mothership is… large. Jeff Goldblum and the Lesser Hemsworth are in and out of peril so quickly I barely noticed. Why introduce a tense action sequence so quick that if I look at my watch I miss it. Now the grasshopper is using its legs to save the egg that was in the alien ball. Jeff Goldblum thinks the alien ball was an enemy of the alien mother ship despite having 0 information to support that supposition (in fact all logic would indicate otherwise), which means that it is definitely correct.
The aliens blow up moon base. Chinese dad dies. Chinese daughter is upset. Will Smith Jr. is here during this scene and does nothing (this will happen several more times. He is Inaction Jackson). We are now toggling back and forth to earth. They have built large lasers around earth that the mother ship instantly destroys and do nothing to the alien ship because it has a force field… JUST LIKE THE LAST ONES DID. Did they think that the next wave would invade without a shield, like I used to play foosball one handed with my off hand, to give earth people a chance? The alien ship enters earth’s atmosphere and immediately destroys an obviously fake Chinese city, in the most obviously fake way possible, that includes people floating in the air like gravity is turned off. I never thought I would long for the mediocre special effects of the first one, but here we are.
Vivaca A Fox gets another scene as part of a court ordered settlement. The problem is I can’t figure out if the order was that they had to give her scenes in the movie, or if she had to take them. London is crumbling as the Lesser Hemsworth flies though CGI graphics that reminded me of a Star Fox game. No one will be seated while all the characters of the movie and random strangers stare at the thing in the sky.
“Oh sweet Moses.”
Will Smith Jr. is working on saving his mom. She is going to save a baby. Will Smith Jr. does nothing but sit in his plane. Vivica A Fox dies a death that makes me think the settlement required her to be in the movie.
OK, the alien ship has crash landed. It is the size of Europe. It has been said that a large asteroid flew and hit earth and the dinosaurs went extinct. This was the equivalent of a moon flying into earth. Everything and everyone should be dead. Doc Oc and Bill Pullman meet up… reunited and it feels so bad….
Lesser Hemsworth is clearly dating the president daughter. Bill Pullman has gone in the alien chamber to get used as a Kermit the Frog puppet by the alien. The alien exposits all over the cell out of Pullman’s mouth. A queen “Alien” has come, without bringing Sigourney Weaver, on either a rescue mission or a retaliation mission. Or both. The alien is afraid of symbol that looks like a ‘computer on’ button sideways. The alien starts grabbing their guns, but the warrior is there, and defies technological advancement to stab the alien to death.
For no apparent reason they introduce us to random teenagers in what looks like a tsunami wasteland. This movie doesn’t need any more characters. It feels like 5 different writers wrote this and someone cobbled all the stories together. *checks IMDB later… it was 6.*
Now we are treated to a scene that is just a portal to a medical gown butt joke.
The aliens are drilling again… Jeff Goldblum posits the idea that if they blow up the mothership, the drilling might stop. Thank God he is here to relay that.
Another photo of Will Smith. I hope they have to pay him residuals from this movie for that. His photo is the 5th best actor in this movie. Will Jr. is upset his mom died. Lesser Hemsworth arrives to… comfort him I guess. I’m not sure because they hate each other.
The government in area 51 decide to drop more nuclear bombs on the alien. I already know this won’t work, because they did it to the other ship and it did nothing. Apparently the plan is to retry all the old things from the first movie that didn’t work to pad the run time of this movie.
Now Lesser Hemsworth and president daughter are having a special moment that…SKIP.
Now we are introduced to a group of characters on a fishing boat. They are drunk. I assume that is the extent of their characters. This movie doesn’t need any more characters.
Back to the kids. They have Jeff Goldblum’s movie dad now. This is three straight scenes this movie has proffered that are unnecessary.
Discount Amy Adams is shown breaking down the alien language some more. Abbott and Costello are gonna be hella jealous.
A large amount of bombers (including Will, Lesser, Chinese and other unrecognizable redshirts that will die) are now going to drop individual nuclear bombs on a ship that I will remind you is the size of Europe. Even if all the bombs hit it would destroy a hole in the ship the size of Croatia. There would still be an entire rest of Europe. Now we are treated to more cut scenes from N64 Starfox, except these have cursing.
Wait, critical update, they found a small opening in the ship they can fly their planes into and shoot photon torpedoes at the one weakness that is built into the ship… no wait that’s Star Wars (but it’s in this movie too for some reason).
This hole is actually big. Uh oh, the big ship shot an EMP or something and their planes are not working anymore. And Lesser Hemsworth was on one of those planes! He is dead now! Just kidding, he won’t be dead. Will Smith Jr does nothing but eject.
The aliens have landed and are storming the other presidential bunker in Cheyenne Mountain. They are armed with lasers and protective armor. I wish the Ultimate Warrior guy with 2 swords was there to stab them all. Boy this is not looking good. All the president’s horses and all the president’s men and all the president are dead.
Back to the kids to having a religious discussion with Jeff Goldblum’s movie dad… SKIP.
Well, now it’s up to Goldblum and Pullman, two of America’s finest actors but here somehow, to come up with a plan to destroy the aliens. Discount Amy Adams and the Ultimate Warrior are examining the alien’s texts. They use a lot of emojis. The aliens have another adversary… cut to the opening of the egg. Which has a ball in it. So the Alien ball with egg had a ball.
Lesser Hemsworth and Will Jr. are alive. It appears they are now fighting hand to hand on what looks like Pandora from Avatar.
Back to area 51 and the ball egg ball. The discovery of the ball egg ball makes the alien queen very angry. The alien army immediately sets out to destroy the ball egg ball. The ball egg ball is expositing all over the lab. They are using the ball egg ball as bait now. Their plan is equally non-sensical to all the other plans, but since it was Jeff Goldblum’s idea, it will definitely work. I am so sure of this, I am not even going to explain it.
After a quick check in with the rapidly sobering fishermen, we see Bill Pullman cleaned up and no longer mentally ill. He gives a watered down independence day speech that is as uninspiring as the original was inspiring. He is going to do the Hopper and fly the bombs into the satellite ship that was sent to kill the ball egg ball.
Kids… road trip… religion… SKIP.
The team with the Goldblum plan have been forced to give up their advanced weapons for primitive ones trope.
Somehow, despite nearly everyone dying in the alien ship when their fighters were EMPed, the core characters we were introduced to all survived. Lesser Hemsworth is peeing and flicking off aliens. Now, to no surprise, they are all flying alien tech like Maverick taught them in flight school. They are fleeing the mothership in what could best be described as a carbon copy of the first movie’s flight from the alien ship. I desperately hope Will Jr. lights up the exact same stogie as Will Smith did.
Now they are pretending Lesser Hemsworth died again. Nope. Once again we do the shortwave radio scene that shows the Americans saving humanity while a bunch of Tibetan Monks and India Indians listen in. Go America!
Kids… school bus… old man Goldblum… SKIP.
Well satellite ship has arrived. It seems to be doing pretty well, I hope it doesn’t lower its shields for no reason. Despite the odds being 0, the kidsschoolbusoldmangoldblum is driving right up to Jeff Goldblum at the center point of the trap for the alien queen, totally oblivious. This would be like if my son flew to somewhere in rural Texas without my knowledge and I almost hit him with my car after driving across the country for two days for no reason.
Bill Pullman and movie daughter are having an unearned tender… SKIP.
It’s weird, the alien ship lowered its shields and bill Pullman flew inside. Huh. Now it’s blowed up. Bill Pullman is gone, but not forgotten. I’m guesing this was in his contract to protect him from a third one of these like Vivica A Fox was.
Surprising no one, the queen is not dead, despite being in the satellite ship. Turns out she has her own shield. There is a breach with the captured aliens in Area 51… but the Ultimate Warrior is coming.
If I could describe the alien queen, imagine if the alien queen from Alien had sex with a crab.
The President’s daughter is in peril. But, despite not being able to communicate with anyone to know anything about the current plan, where it is, or what will happen, the lesser Hemsworth, Will Jr. and the desire to see the film play in Asian markets arrive and save the day.
The queen has activated her hive mind powers. All of a sudden she has an army of alien jets around her that came from, lets say, San Antonio.
Someone I don’t know is dying and Doc Oc is upset. Goodbye sweet someone.
Now I guess the team that showed up out of nowhere did something and now they are doing other stuff… I don’t know… OH NO THE QUEEN HAS THE BALL EGG BALL! They shot the queen! Explosions! Smoke! The Queen is dead! All hail the new queen: Jeff Goldblum!
The president’s daughter almost shoots the lesser Hemsworth. He was that close to being safe from a third one.
Will Smith Jr. stands there with a smirk on his face, doing nothing, completely forgetting his mom died. He does not assist in any way.
Now the Indian Indians and the Tibetan monks can once again celebrate America saving they day. They are delighted.
The drunken sailors rejoice by redrunkening.
OH… NO…. THEY… ARE… SETTING… UP… A…SEQUEL…
NUCLEAR SKIIIIIIIIIIIIP.
The drunk sailors are excited. I have no idea what they did.
Now it’s raining alien planes like dead birds in Dark.
Man do I need a palate cleanser after that.