Independence Day

I believe that at the time it was released, it was a fine innovative blockbuster that managed to shock. Today, however, Independence Day doesn't impress at all, because we've seen everything in it a thousand times and better. The acting is average, the visuals were fine for the time, but today they are rather laughable, and the completely formulaic plot doesn't add to its appeal either. Roland Emmerich's sci-fi vision, which he spins over and over again in each of his films, also slowly comes across as his pure egotism and personal ambition to make films "for himself", I guess I can't really explain it any other way. I was thinking that this particular piece is quite famous, well-known and praised, but for me it's just a below average misstep that I'd rather not remember tomorrow. (15/04/2023)

Switch off your brain, make a big bucket of popcorn for yourself, turn the volume up (there’s no point in watching it anywhere else but at either a home or a regular theater) and make yourself believe the misleading phrase “it’s a spoof" and, mainly, take it easy. If you manage to persuade yourself that it really is meant as a spoof then it is an excellent B-grade catastrophe movie with a huge budget and well known, but mostly terrible actors (with one exception of Will Smith, brimming with snappy lines) and it’s decently paced. On top of all that it’s too long and overflowing with American pathos to an extent that can be trumped only by Emmerich himself in his subsequent movies. (22/04/2005)

Independence Day is in a typically Emmerich vein, with this film being one of the first pieces to feature the director’s penchant for monster-scale visual effects, as well as the catastrophic-apocalyptic feel and the American heroism of the main characters. The cast was mostly likeable, the plot moved along, although twenty minutes less running time would not have hurt, and from a technical point of view it is a very successful achievement. In short, one of those films that is great for switching off the brain and unwinding. (11/07/2016)

Roland Emmerich bursts the floodgates with pathos. Bill Pullman is completely off with his heroic president, Will Smith is embarrassing, Jeff Goldblum might as well not have been there at all – and this is all just a minor, overrated mishap. This variation on War of the Worlds didn't work out and despite the gripping scene of the destruction of the White House, I have an aversion towards this film. (27/01/2006)

Honestly speaking, I don't consider myself a fan of the highly peculiar director Roland Emmerich and his pompous megalomaniacal movies. The theme of alien invasion has been seen countless times in B-movie sci-fi films before Emmerich, and Emmerich simply decided that if he couldn't make the first one, he would at least make the biggest alien invasion in the history of cinema. So the sky is filled with thousands of gigantic flying saucers. I mean, why not use the cliché that the movie audience has perfectly absorbed in their blood? These monstrous artificial bodies have dozens, even hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and apparently, neither the screenwriter nor the director are burdened by the problem of maneuvering such oversized vehicles in the gravitational fields of the moons and planets of our solar system, nor the fact that they suddenly appear here. Otherwise, it is exceptionally pathetic, patriotic, and heroic. So, who can get into a fighter jet to bravely face an alien invasion? The American president, of course. Emmerich has not yet made a masterpiece in the genre, and Independence Day is no exception to that rule. Overall impression: 40%. (04/01/2008)