INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE

Somebody alert the press! Independence Day got itself a sequel. I don't know where the studio brass' collective heads were when they green-lit this movie but my best guess is that they took a jump to the left out of a time warp. Never the less, everyone's favorite Sunday afternoon movie is back with a new chapter starring Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman reprising their roles as David and President Whitmore  along side Liam Hemsworth, Jessie T. Usher who plays the son of the absent Will Smith's character and Maika Monroe as Whitmore's daughter. Also returning are Brent Spiner and the incomparable Judd Hirsche as David's father Julius. In short everyone is here to take on another swing at the alien menace who, in response to their crushing defeat in 1996, have sent in a call to their home planet for reinforcements.

The biggest stumbling block this movie has is just how impossibly late it is. The original film, despite it's flaws, had a lot going for it with it's white hot cast, adventurous spirit and unique story. It didn't matter that a computer running Windows 95 could somehow interface with an alien spaceship or that Vivica A. Fox and Boomer the dog avoid a trillion degree fire by hiding from it in a closet or just how impossibly racist Judd Hirsche's character was. It just felt right at the time. This movie however is just so long overdue that it's no longer the cute as a button baby that we would have embraced with open arms had it come out in 1998. Instead, it's an overweight 34 year old man with a mustard stain on his horribly faded Blues Traveler t-shirt. The overall story feels dated, juvenile and ridiculously out of place especially when compared to the films that came in it's wake over the last 20 years like Edge of Tomorrow and Battle Los Angeles which believe it or not is a better film than this. The action is confusing, the story is limp and certain characters make returns only to die or unceremoniously be written out of the story for no real reason at all. There is an extremely interesting side plot dealing with an ground war that the aliens fought with human forces in Africa which would have made an incredible film in and of itself but that bit is forsaken in favor of more cameos and another far more convoluted story line that ends with an even more unbelievable and convoluted cliffhanger.

Ultimately I can't really recommend this movie to anyone other than the biggest of big ID4 fans. Independence Day: Resurgence gets a 2... out of 5