Movie Review: Independence Day Resurgence (PG13 – 120 Minutes)

Spoiler Alert - we win.  

It’s been 20 years since the original Independence Day.  It was released Fourth of July weekend in 1996, and became a huge summer hit.  It told the story of a random group of people brought together during an alien attack.  Simple enough – but insanely watchable due to the amazing effects and great cast who were just charming enough to really make the audience care about the characters and get wrapped up into the story. 

This movie picks up 20 years later.  Similarly to the first movie, the beginning is loosely connected stories to introduce the characters as they prepare for a huge celebration to commemorate the victory 20 years ago. Dissimilarly to the first movie – there are way too many characters here, and several of them are unnecessary.

Humanity is almost completely united, a bit overconfident, and has spent the last 20 years readying for the aliens to return.  Area 51 has become a huge base with an alien prison. After all, when all their ships crashed in 96 after we destroyed the mothership, we had to put the prisoners somewhere. From what I could tell, they’ve basically been comatose for the last 20 years.  The President is prepping her speech.  Pilot Jake Morrison is working on installing a huge cannon on the moon that will help defend us, should the enemy return.  Jake is important to the story because he’s engaged to Patricia Whitmore, daughter of former president Whitmore (who seems to be going a little crazy) and now aide to current President Lanford. Dylan Hiller (son of Capt. Steven Hiller – the hero of the first movie), is leading the ‘legacy’ squadron of fighter pilots and they are preparing to head up to the moon base to fly the flags of the united countries for the ceremony.  Choppily added in to this is a backstory that involves Hiller being angry at Morrison for almost getting him killed during a training mission – something Hiller is particularly sensitive about, as it is stated that his father was killed on a test flight training mission. 

On top of that, David Levinson (the other hero from 96) is traveling to Africa to meet the warlord who has been leading his people in a ground battle with the aliens for the last 20 years, since one of their ships actually landed there prior to the mothership being destroyed years ago.  Floyd Rosenberg (no idea what his job is – some sort of federal paper pusher?) and Catherine Marceaux (psychologist) are there as well, and Dikembe Umbutu – the warlord, tells them they’ve been able to win the ground battle by realizing you have to kill the aliens from behind – as the foot soldiers are still in their larger, tentacled bio-mechanical exo-suits.  Levinson and crew head inside the ship and realize it sent out a distress signal.  At the same time – the prisoners suddenly wake up and start screaming.

Just as you’re still trying to wrap your head around all the character development from the beginning (wait, who was that one guy? Why are we paying attention to him?), the moon base gets contact from something coming towards it.  Paranoid, and not listening to Levinson – they shoot it down, even though Whitmore and Levinson state it was not from the same species they are at war with.  Morrison uses his ship to pick up an item that was in the ship, and then go pick up Levinson.  As a huge ship shows up – large enough to have its own gravity.  It is zooming past Saturn, totally messing up its rings. It has a big time shield, so it destroys all the weapons we had in place both on the moon and around the earth.  During this rampant destruction – all kinds of obvious landmarks are destroyed, people get wiped out – and the president and other big-time execs are all wiped out – so suddenly General Adams (who seems to be in control at Area 51) becomes president. Hiller and his squad head down to earth. The ship – about the size of a continent – settles over the earth, and starts to drill, because of course – they want our core to power their ships.

Everyone reconvenes at Area 51 and attempts to come up with a plan while Dr. Okun (who has been in a coma since the alien used him as a communication method in the first movie) wakes up and starts to go a little crazy.  None of the plans are particularly good, but basically they figure out that they won the first time when they destroyed the mothership, they killed the ‘Harvester Queen’.  Since these aliens are more insect-like, they figure that there is a queen in the mining ship clinging to earth, and if they can kill her – they can wipe out all the other aliens.  Great plan, but the queen realizes that the thing they got from the first ship that approached the moon is a sphere from another race, and she’s all about getting to that, so she comes after them.

Okun gets the sphere loose, and Floyd accidentally opens it – and it starts telling everyone how it is a species that has evolved to really only be computers – and its running a ‘refugee planet’ for other species that have been displaced by these ‘harvesters’ wiping out their planets. The sphere is convinced it’s too late, once the queen gets a hold of it – all hope is lost. To prevent that, Morrison, Hiller and squad fly into her ship to try to destroy her, but of course; that was a trap – so they crash and have to steal some alien ships to fly out.  Levinson and Okun and all decide to replicate the signal the sphere makes and lure the queen out onto the salt flats so they can take her out.  A good enough plan, but the queen is surrounding herself with a swirling vortex of her ships – including Hiller and Morrison.  Eventually, they get her – rescuing the sphere, and cause all the other ships to crash.   Oh – and rescue David’s father Julius as he’s driving a school bus full of kids (worst forced storyline ever). The sphere then decides humans are pretty great after all and asks them to come help train all the other refugees so that they can wipe the Harvesters out of the galaxy.  Get ready for the next movie.

Like the first one, this is directed by master-of-disaster Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Universal Soldier, Godzilla, 2012, Day After Tomorrow), and produced by Dean Devlin.  It’s not nearly as strong as the first one, the setup is more choppy – and the new characters are not nearly as charming as the previous round.  It’s got potential – and it feels like it just comes up short of what I wanted, but does deliver here and there. 

The movie looks great, but honestly, the worldwide CGI disaster has gotten so old at this point that my brain just checks out at those scenes “Oh, London is getting destroyed again”.  In the first movie, it was still new – now, we’ve seen it in almost every summer movie since then. When the destruction is so large scale and so animated, you really write it off, and don’t become invested.  It is clearly an attempt to top the first movie, but in doing that – it just ends up distancing the audience, whereas in the first movie, it pulled the audience in.  Honestly, I could have done with tighter action and less worldwide destruction. The story in the first movie also was strong and brought the audience in – here, it’s so overwhelming that it doesn’t really have the same intimacy the first one did.  The strongest part of the movie is once again the cast.  I personally missed Will Smith a whole bunch, I think the movie desperately needed his charisma – but hey, he was finishing up Concussion and starting Suicide Squad, so it didn’t really fit his schedule.  Did he make the right call? That remains to be seen (no, no he did not).  That charisma is lacking here, several of the new characters feel under-committed and tepid. What the original had going for it was that most of the actors were over-the-top enough to match the story/onscreen destruction.

• Liam Hemsworth plays Jake Morrison – he’s a pilot who is on some sort of punishment detail on the moon after his theatrics in trying to get the lead position for the legacy squadron, during which he almost killed Dylan.  We know the aliens killed his parents the first time around, and we know that he’s Patricia Whitmore’s fiancé. But aside from that, he’s flat and uninteresting.

• Jessie T. Usher plays Dylan Hiller – now, why they didn’t use Ross Bagley who played Dylan in the first movie and is still acting, is a little beyond me, but hey – whatever.  Usher is a little more charismatic, but really has nothing to work with in terms of story aside from a hatred of Morrison.  He doesn’t seem to have any issues with attempting to live up to his father’s legend, which could have been interesting. 

• Maika Monroe plays Patricia Whitmore – again, why didn’t they use Mae Whitman who played her in the first movie? She used to be a fighter pilot like her father, and flew in the legacy squadron, but she’s working for the current president now, trying to convince Morrison to be good while waiting out his stint on the moon. She actually was interesting – apparently she gave up flying to help take care of her father, who is slightly insane after having the aliens poke around in his head. Honestly, if Hemsworth’s character wasn’t in the movie, and she was given a slightly larger role – I think the movie would have been stronger.

• Angelababy plays Rain Lao – a member of the legacy squadron whose uncle runs the moon base. Again – nothing really given to her in terms of story or character, and just having Morrison’s partner lust after her doesn’t count.

• Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Catherine Marceaux; a French psychologist who beats Levinson to Africa to continue to study the effects on the minds of those who have been in close contact with the aliens, who communicate mostly by telepathy. It tends to really mess up humans, and then they have lingering after effects and telepathic headaches when more aliens show up.  They are also all drawing the same symbol, so she’s all about finding out what that means. The backstory of a previous romantic encounter with Levinson was useless and unnecessary.

• Sela Ward plays President Lanford, and she’s all tough all the time and decides to shoot at the sphere despite warnings from several people that it was not from the same race and could be on our side.  She does pay for that decision – but not without a tough one-liner.

• William Fichtner plays General Adams, and he’s pretty great, just like he is in everything. I wish he had a little more to do here than just listen to everyone and make decisions. 

• British actor Deobia Oparei plays Dikembe Umbutu, and he really stole every scene he was in.  What would be a fascinating spin-off idea is to see the 20 years or so when he and his people were fighting that ground war against the aliens while they were mining in Africa.  He’s started to translate their language, he can sometimes hear them in his head, he knows how to kill them, he took over after his father did a poor job of leading…this dude has the best backstory, and is easily one of the most interesting characters played with just the right mix of seriousness and over-the-top-ness by Oparei.  I’m still upset he got killed on GOT, but hey – at least he’s got other stuff happening.

• Nicolas Wright plays Floyd Rosenberg, and he’s almost the opposite of Umbutu’s character – made all the more obvious since they are pretty much paired together for the movie.  His backstory is so uninteresting that I have legitimately forgotten what his job was and why he was with Levinson in Africa. He gets slightly more interesting as the movie goes on, but only because he continues to try to prove that he’s useful, and mostly fails.

Now to the returning cast…

• Judd Hirsch plays Julius Levinson, and while he was humorous in the first movie, and helped to ground and personalize David’s character, here, he feels completely useless.  He’s totally shoehorned into the plot – reading and selling his memoir at a senior home, then fishing on his boat when the mothership lands, then joining up with a bunch of kids whose parents are dead – resulting in him being in the school bus for the final fight.  He just wasn’t used well, and honestly could have been removed from the movie without losing anything.

• Vivica Fox basically cameos as her character from the first movie – Jasmine Hiller – who is now a doctor.  Which is great, since she was unnecessarily a stripper in the first movie. She’s there to worry about her son when he goes on training missions.

• Bill Pullman plays Former President Whitmore, and does a great job of being totally insane and worried for the front half of the movie. He’s convinced they are coming back, and does give a short speech in this one that is not nearly as good as the previous one, and then a big time beard-shaving triumphant moment as he gets ready to get back in a plane.

• Brent Spiner plays Dr. Brackish Okun, and again – lightens up the movie tremendously with his exuberance.  He’s been in a coma for the last 20 years, since the alien used him as a talking-device.  Suddenly, when the mother ship shows back up, he wakes up – and helps analyze and work with the sphere.

• Jeff Goldblum is the very best part of this movie and basically carries the majority of it.  He once again plays David Levinson, and is still the smartest dude around, and is working on understanding the aliens to be better prepared for their inevitable return.  Connie is nowhere to be found in this movie, despite them finishing the last movie together, and instead it is implied he had a previous relationship with Catherine.

Overall, I’m honestly not sure what I thought about it. I simultaneously loved it and hated it.  There are parts that are great (most of them Jeff Goldblum), and parts that are terrible.  I was happy that there was some inclusion of hand to hand ground combat with the aliens, in the first movie – it was mostly aerial dogfights. The story wasn’t bad, and I’m interested to see what the sphere has in store for the future.  It could have been tightened up, cut out some of the useless parts and characters (Hemsworth, Hirsch, Fox, Wright and Gainsbourg could have all been removed) and strengthened some of the action – and actually made the action tighter, and I would have loved it.  Also –Will Smith – it really needed Will Smith.

6 out of 10 – not terrible, but not great.  We’ll see what comes next. I did like the alien queen, she was pretty nifty – but again, would have been even more impressive if she had not been ruined for me by the trailers. Get it together, Hollywood marketing people.

Bonus – 1997's Starship Troopers bugs – because if you’re going to battle alien bugs…have them be big time practical effects.

Movie Review: Central Intelligence (PG13 – 114 minutes)

Everybody loves a great buddy comedy.  Well, almost everyone loves a great buddy comedy.  They usually follow the setup of two opposite personalities being thrown together for an adventure, then hijinks ensue.  Trading Places, 48 hours, Twins, The Heat, etc.  It’s a really old formula, and it keeps getting made because it works.

This movie is no exception – it’s solid, not overwhelming, but solid.  The tagline, “Saving the world needs a little Hart and a big Johnson” should pretty much give you an idea of the tone of the movie.  Get it?  Because Dwayne Johnson is huge and Kevin Hart is tiny?  Not as funny as you want, but not terrible.

The movie opens with a flashback to a 1996 high school senior assembly – Calvin Joyner is the valedictorian who rules the school and is voted most likely to succeed.  Robbie Weirdict is an overweight kid who showers at school during first period.  Some bullies find him and throw him naked onto the middle of the gym floor during the assembly.  Everyone laughs except Calvin, who gives Robbie his letter jacket to help cover up. 

Cut to 20 years later, and Calvin is an accountant who just got passed over for a promotion, is married to his high school sweetheart, and deciding not to go to the 20 year reunion, because he feels he hasn’t lived up to his potential, and that his star is not as bright as it was in high school.  He randomly gets a friend request on Facebook after responding to the reunion group from a Bob Stone.  He accepts, and in order to get out of going to couples therapy with his wife, agrees to meet with Bob at a bar for drinks.  Once there, he realize that Bob is the man who used to be Robbie, and is now – well - he's now the Rock.

Bob gets real friendly real quick, and after beating up some terrible bullies in the bar, they head to Calvin’s house – where Bob suspiciously asks Calvin for help looking up some ‘payroll’ information.  Calvin’s computer gets pinged right before Bob “accidentally” spills a beverage on it.  The next morning, Bob disappears just as the CIA shows up and asks Calvin where he is.  From there on – Calvin gets wrapped up in a mystery where he has to decide if he trusts Bob – who says he’s a CIA agent who has been framed with an international crime, or Bob’s former boss – who says he’s crazy, a criminal, a murderer, and on the run.  Hijinks and fun cameos ensue.

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber, who previously did Dodgeball (A True Underdog Story), and We’re the Millers, is good at screwball comedy with surprising heart moments.  This is definitely that.  Not every joke hits, and some feel a little forced, but the movie has a great anti-bullying message, and some laughs all the way through.  The cast is small, but game.

• Dwayne Johnson plays Bob Stone and plays this a little bigger than we’re used to seeing him.  He’s usually the action hero, or in a comedy, the straight man.  Here – he gets to play the goofy one.  It actually works pretty well, and you believe that this guy is all in on trying to solve this case.  At first his devotion to Calvin comes off as weird and a little stalker-y, but the advantage of the charm of the Rock is that it goes through creepy to devoted, and you can see that this man attributes most of his positive outlook in life to the one kind gesture from Calvin in high school, and is now able to turn that positivity around and feed it back to Calvin, who needs a boost of self-confidence.  I’m not sure anyone else could have pulled that off; it would have just stayed creepy with any other actor. 

• Hardest-working-man-in-Hollywood Kevin Hart plays Calvin Joyner – and if you haven’t seen any of his stand-up specials, check them out, they are on Netflix.  He’s lightning-paced, and usually is the over-the-top goofy one.  However, here, he’s the straight man.  It’s interesting, and he does well.  They also use the obvious height difference to great comedic effect throughout the movie.  Hart makes you feel for Calvin as he slowly gains self-confidence during his screw-ball adventure with Bob.

• Amy Ryan plays Agent Harris, and doesn’t have much to do aside from grumpily chase Bob around and demand assistance from Calvin.  She plays it with a snarky superiority that really does help the comedy.

• Danielle Nicolet plays Calvin’s wife Maggie and has even less to do.  She basically just keeps requesting that he go to couples therapy with her and go to the reunion with her.

• Jason Bateman plays Trevor – the former high school bully – who is still a dick.  Bateman is always a great addition to a comedy, and it’s great to see him get his comeuppance in this flick.

• Aaron Paul plays Bob’s dead partner Phil; and yes, does work ‘bitch’ into a sentence for you Breaking Bad fans.  He fits well into the role, and I’d be interested in seeing him do more weird comedies.

• Ryan Hansen plays Steve, Calvin’s co-worker.  He’s one of those guys that you’ve seen everywhere before, but might not know his name.  He’s hilariously annoying in this.

Hart and Johnson are wonderful together, play well off each other, and I did love flipping what would have been the assumed tones between them.  I would love to see them in more movies together, certainly they could throw together a sequel to this.  This movie is fun, reiterates a wonderful anti-bullying message, and has the number one thing all comedies should have – outtakes over the end credits! 

7 out of 10 – gained points for the chase sequences, for Calvin rescuing Bob, and for Bob surviving Agent Harris’s torture in a hilarious manner.

Bonus – Megan Trainor’s All About that Bass video – the big dude dancing is the one who body doubled for the Rock in High School in Central Intelligence, he is an awesome dancer!  Random trivia for you.

Retro Movie Review: Independence Day (1996 – PG13 – 145 minutes)

This movie has been on my mind a lot lately, for lots of reasons.  First and foremost, there is a sequel being released in just a week or two, 20 years after the original was released.  Amazing.  But even more so – lately it seems that Hollywood marketing people have lost their minds.  For a lot of recent movies – Independence Day Resurgence among them – I feel like the commercials and trailers have been showing way too much of the movie.  I worry that they have ruined the end of this one in particular, that giant alien you’ve seen stomping around? I’m sure that’s the finale of the flick.  Earlier this year, they did BVS Dawn of Justice no favors by showing that Doomsday was featured, and last summer they showed the IRex from Jurassic World, which would have been a stunning reveal had they kept it under wraps – plus the reveal of Pratt’s keeper riding with the velociraptor pack.  

I feel like in terms of movies that did it right, I always remember the original Independence Day.  I remember for the Superbowl in early 1996, prior to hearing anything about the movie, there was a commercial that just showed that amazing shot of the White House blowing up. 

At that point, I still had no idea who was in the movie – or even what it was really about, and that one shot kept me looking forward to it for 5 months while we waited for the movie to come out.

Independence Day starts with an eerie shot of the moon on July 2^nd as something moves past it.  A scientist at the SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence – visit them at Seti.org) picking up on a signal.  He calls in the boss, and they listen to the signal together, initially wanting to write it off as much of the space garbage they hear regularly.  However, this one is clearly generated, communicative, and getting closer.  We then are gradually introduced to the main characters by seeing them in random locations – prepping for the July 4^th holiday.  We meet the president, Thomas J. Whitmore, Air Force Pilot Captain Steven Hiller, his unnecessarily-a-stripper girlfriend, Jasmine, and her son; and MIT grad David Levinson.  The signal is finally analyzed - it is a giant alien mothership that has passed the moon and is taking up in orbit around the earth.  It releases 36 smaller spacecraft – each about 15 miles across (city-killers) that each enter the atmosphere and take up positions over the largest cities on Earth.  Remember how amazing seeing that was for the first time?

People behave as people will – some wanting to run up to the top of buildings with signs (“I hope they bring back Elvis!” – they don’t), and some panic and try to leave the cities (these are the smarter folks). Levinson realizes that they are using our own satellites to communicate (he works for a cable company) and immediately gets in touch with his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano – he grabs his father Julius, and they head from New York down to Washington D.C.  They get to the president, and David lets him know that the signal is a countdown to what he can only assume is an attack.  The president tries to pull back a helicopter that was flashing lights at the ship in order to try to communicate it, but as the countdown hits zero – each of the 36 ships attacks at the same time, launching a beam from the center of their ships to whatever is beneath, causing a ring of fire to move outwards, destroying whatever in comes in contact with. 

We then shift to July 3^rd as the ships close up, and each one moves to the next city on their lists.  Humanity tries to assemble some sort of counter-attack, and we follow Capt. Hiller and his group as they attack the ship nearest to them. They quickly find that the ships have hundreds of smaller fighter ships inside, and most of our forces get wiped out in dogfights. Hiller leads one in a chase through the Grand Canyon, causing both his ship and it to crash – at this point, he climbs on top of the ship and when the alien attempts to pop out, he punches it in the face.  Because Will Smith.

The president, Connie, David, and Julius are hanging out on Air Force One, having barely escaped D.C., and now looking for a plan.  Julius accuses the President of not acting on the information he had from the aliens that crashed in 1947 and they were keeping in the secret base, Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico. The President insists that this is not true, but Defense Secretary Nimzicki states that it is actually there – so there is where they head. 

Meanwhile, Hiller is dragging his punched-out alien through the desert and runs into a convoy of RVs led by Vietnam Vet, Crop Duster, and self-proclaimed alien abduction victim, Russel Case.  He instructs them to head to the secret base he saw from the air – convenient, because now everyone is heading to Area 51.

The President and crew meet Dr. Okun, who seems to be in charge of the place, he and his staff have three alien bodies from the 1947 crash and the ship – which has started to react in the last two days since the arrival of the others. They have some information on them, but not much – basically they wear bio-mechanical exo-suits and communicate telepathically.  When Hiller arrives with his alien, Okun starts an examination of it – removing it from the bio-suit.  However, it wakes up, trashes the place, and communicates through Okun to the president.  Whitmore asks what they want us to do, and very ominously, the alien responds “DIE”.  He then learns through some telepathy that the aliens are wanting to wipe us out to take the earth for its resources.  That doesn’t sit well with us, after all, we’re wanting to use up our own resources – so the president authorizes the military to try a nuclear weapon on one of the ships.  

That doesn’t work - why did they think it would?  David, in a fit of drunken despair, comes up with an idea to give their systems a virus.  Since we couldn’t get though their shields, but they are using our satellites, he designs a computer virus that will interrupt their communications, hopefully shutting down their shields, and allowing us to attack them. 

It’s a pretty great plan, or it’s the only plan, so Hiller quickly marries Jasmine, and David reconciles with Connie so that Hiller and David can fly the old ship up to the mother ship and upload the virus. The president gives a really inspiring speech to everyone left who is about to take to the skies to fight as dawn breaks on July 4^th.

Hiller and David head up (nevermind how Hiller knows how to fly the ship); just as another ship moves in over the base to send out its fighters and destroy the base.  David uploads the virus (nevermind how his system can interact with theirs), and just when they think their trip is one way – they shoot a nuclear missile into the mother ship – dislodging theirs, and head down as quickly as possible. 

The fighters on the ground can now destroy the smaller ships because the shields are down, but the larger city-killer is too big for them to take out, until Russel Case flies his ship directly up the center weapon-hole.  This sets off explosions from the inside, and they communicate that to everyone all over the world, so they know how to bring down the aliens.

Hiller and David crash out in the desert to be greeted by Connie, Jasmine and the president – everyone is all happy as the ships crash down around them.  Hooray! Humanity wins!  At least until we go see Independence Day Resurgence, I mean – who knows how the aliens have spent the last 20 years.  My guess is that they are seriously angry with us.

Directed by Roland Emmerich and produced by Dean Devlin, this movie is the best of their multiple team-ups.  Prior to this, they had done Universal Soldier (1992) and Stargate (1994).  They followed this with the terrible Godzilla (1998), the Patriot (2000 – you remember, the movie about the American Revolution starring two Australians?).  You can tell, at least from Universal Soldier and Stargate, that Emmerich excels at big sweeping action movies (he also did The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and White House Down) and as much as I loved both Universal Soldier and Stargate, this movie is really fantastic, and still holds up.  The pacing of the movie – cleanly broken into the three days – really helps to get the audience on board with the speed of the attack.  The effects at the time were ground breaking, and the first scenes of the ships breaking into the atmosphere and slowing down were stunning and amazing.  It is a bit heavy-handed in the triumph scenes, especially in insinuating that the rest of the world was just sitting around waiting for the Americans to come up with a solution, but it does manage to balance that with some more quiet, touching scenes – especially with the death of the First Lady.  The scope of the movie is incredible – it manages to be a really huge global story, but by giving us multiple really interesting characters – also manages to feel fairly personal.

• This is a Will Smith movie, and definitely helped to cement his role as an action star.  This came right after Bad Boys – and Smith feels completely genuine and believable as Capt. Hiller. He never gets overwhelmed by the situation, preferring to handle one issue at a time, ready to take on each challenge as it comes up.  The interesting backstory of him always wanting to be an astronaut was a nice bit – but never really gets developed, just pays off when he finally gets to fly the spaceship.  His shooting Suicide Squad prevented him from joining in the upcoming sequel, but hopefully they’ve handled the lack of Will with grace.

• Bill Pullman plays President Whitmore, and does a great job of making the audience really sympathize with this former pilot from the Gulf War as he shifts to leading the country.  Not to mention the fact that he jumps into a plane for the final fight – come on, that’s awesome.  And yes, that speech – however cheesy – still gives me chills.

• Jeff Goldblum plays David Levinson, and this came just three years after Jurassic Park, so Goldblum was familiar to summer tentpole audiences.  He makes David very relatable, and really snarky and fun.  Plus, who doesn’t love a guy who once punched the president over a lady?

• Mary McDonnell plays the First Lady – good practice before she headed over to BSG and accidentally became president there.  She stands by Whitmore, when all the critics are calling him ‘too soft’, and then handles her helicopter crash with grace.

• Judd Hirsch – who is really only a few years older than Goldblum, plays Julius.  He is very cranky and very Jewish, and is mostly comedy relief. 

• Robert Loggia plays General Grey – who serves as the president’s military advisor.  He handles this alien invasion the way you expect a career military man to handle it.  He doesn’t become flustered – just finds a way to attack.

• Randy Quaid plays the very crazy Russell Case, who you assume is crazy when he talks about how he was abducted years ago – but then you start to realize he might have been right.  His over-the-top delivery of his final line to the aliens as he’s bringing the ship down is a bit much – but hey – it fits the character I suppose.

• Margaret Colin plays Connie Spano – and is great at being annoyed at Goldblum when he shows up.  She also is quick to believe him and gets him in to see the president just in time.

• Vivica A. Fox plays Jasmine, and yes – she loves dolphins – but is the fact that she is a stripper really the reason NASA won’t let Hiller become an astronaut?  That seems crazy, but hey – I don’t know anything about NASA’s hiring practices.  She got called in to work on her day off, even though there is a giant spaceship hovering over L.A. She also proves to be pretty handy in a crisis – stealing a huge truck and rescuing the first lady.

• James Rebhorn plays Nimziki – a standard government tool who didn’t tell the president about Area 51 because of ‘plausible deniability’.

• Harvey Fierstein plays Harvey Fierstein as the head of the cable company that David is working for – he’s strictly comedy relief as he helps try to get people out of the building once David realizes the aliens are going to attack.
• Adam Baldwin plays Major Mitchell – a military employee at Area 51.

• Bent Spiner goes completely nuts at Dr. Okun – a re-creation of a production designer named Okun that Emmerich and Devlin worked with on StarGate. He is goofy and weird, but really helps light the middle of the movie. 

• Harry Connick Jr. plays Jimmy – Hiller’s flying partner who gets taken out really quickly while fighting the first wave of attackers.  He certainly was charming while there, though.

• Erick Avari gets a bit cameo as the head of SETI in the beginning of the movie, presumably since he held up so much of StarGate previously for Emmerich and Devlin.

Overall, the movie was fantastic, fun, exciting, and watchable.  It still holds up.  I tend to watch it just about every Independence Day.  I wish movies today would have that same sense of amazement I had when I first saw it, and I’m worried that the commercials/trailers have ruined what would have been those moments for the second.  Much of the original cast is back, and I really look forward to seeing what happens this time around.

9 out of 10 – taking off a point for Randy Quaid, and for Adam Baldwin’s toxic real-life personality, which now colors my opinion of him when I see him onscreen.

Bonus – Stargate, before Spader went Ultron, he was Kurt Russell’s sidekick.