It’s been twenty years since aliens attacked Earth in the first Independence Day, a movie I felt was rather dopey at the time.  I’ve seen it several times since then, and I have developed a respect for it.  It’s still dopey, but it is very effective and quite satisfying as populist entertainment.  It’s no The War of the Worlds (1953), but it has become a generational icon, and I had hopes that a sequel might not be a bad idea.  I was wrong.

Roland Emmerich once again directs (and co-writes), but this updated version is either too thin (not enough explanation of the science, nor character development, especially of the new people) or too thick (too many special effects, too much “bigness”).  It is an absolute mistake to make the invading spacecraft so huge that it clips the Moon and then crashes into Earth.  Even though it still contains alien warships — and a Queen! — it lies there like an inert thing, beached and broken, with almost no menace.

The returning characters evince little nostalgia: President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is a crazy old geezer; scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is still annoying; fighter pilot Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is absent, and greatly missed.  Scientist Brakish Okun (Brent Spiner) awakens from his coma as the aliens return and provides a real spark of energy; Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch) is older and grouchier as David’s father; general William Grey (Robert Loggia) is present but on his last legs (Loggia died in December).  The aliens are back, too, just as ruthless and ugly and bland as before.

What’s new?  Earth has adapted alien technology to defend itself — this is of no use, since the aliens have improved their offensive capabilities.  A different alien appears first, and is blasted out of the sky, only to be saved on the Moon by Dr. Levinson.  When Dr. Okun establishes communication with it, everybody accepts what it says as gospel without any suspicion or verification.  And that is just one of the many issues I have with this hokey movie.  It provided a perfect opportunity to let Julius die with dignity, yet there he is at the climax, driving a bus of orphans right into the battlefield near Area 51, looking for his son David.  Uggh.

I wasn’t a big Will Smith fan in 1996; I felt that his constant wisecracking detracted from the story.  I was wrong; his constant mugging provided cover for it.  This movie misses him so much; it casts Liam Hemsworth as this generation’s version of Steven Hiller, as well as Jessie T. Usher as Hiller’s son Dylan, trying to follow in his footsteps.  Neither actor has the personality to win the audience’s favor the way that Smith did two decades ago.  Maika Monroe does a nice job as the president’s daughter, and it’s nice to see Sela Ward and William Fichtner get some decent screen time.  But Charlotte Gainsbourg seems completely out of place (and has absolutely no chemistry with Goldblum), and Deobia Oparei isn’t a strong enough name to make people forget about Will Smith.

Finally, this movie now shares the same issues as its Transformer cousins, where action speeds by so fast that one cannot actually tell what is going on in the battle scenes.  Even so, the pilots keep looking back to confirm they’ve shot down enemy ships; in those moments they would be blown to bits.  The aliens seem to have no plan after wiping out the eastern seaboard of North America other than to wait until we enter their mighty ship to ambush us.  There is very little common sense in this movie, and the idea that we wouldn’t be aware of their coming is preposterous.  Sadly, most of this movie is preposterous.  ☆ ☆.  28 June 2016.