Movie Review

'Independence Day' thrills, but doesn't quite hit target

By Scott Foundas
Film Editor

Following the veritable disasters of "Twister" and "Eraser," Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day" arrives with an especially cumbersome burden to bear. In a way, the entire fate of the summer movie season rests on its shoulders.
After a couple of very good pictures that disappointed at the box office and a share of disappointments that set Hollywood's cash registers into overdrive, "Independence Day" seemed our last hope for a huge summer movie that would prove to be everything that months of pre-release advertising had cracked it up to be. So, I'm quite happy to report that the whole thing works quite well--even if the feats it accomplishes just don't seem as spectacular as they used to anymore.
"Independence Day" is huge in every way: huge budget, huge cast, huge special effects, and so on, but there remains a certain coldness--an impersonal sterility--that can not be denied. Perhaps the sheer physical demands of producing and directing a film of this scale left Dean Devlin and Emmerich with little time or energy to toil over the specifics of a well-wrought screenplay. So, as it is, "Independence Day" plays across the screen quite satisfactorily--dazzling us often and reminding us of more adept treatments of similar material almost as much.
For those who have been out of the country or under a rock, "Independence Day" follows the reaction of the citizens, military and government of the United States over the three days of an alien arrival, a vicious attack on U. S. soil and the desperate attempt to fight back and win a seemingly unconquerable enemy.
As "Independence Day" begins, we are introduced to an assortment of characters in an Altman-esque cross-cutting fashion, and we then gradually proceed to determine how they are interrelated. This part of the film works surprisingly well, as Emmerich allows tension to build slowly, while giving us an utterly believable portrait of how the common man might react to the sudden appearance of some most unknown visitors.
Ultimately, Emmerich trips up by placing a bit too much emphasis on the intimate details of his characters' lives than such two-dimensional stock creations can really sustain. We never feel that we really know any of these people, but that doesn't stop Emmerich from thinking that we'll be interested in the specifics of their bad marriages, poor career choices and checkered personal histories.
This isn't a movie that takes any of these relationships seriously, but it could have been. With a director like James Cameron at the helm, "Independence Day" might have been as epic on a human scale as it is on a sheerly physical one, but there's little use crying over spilled milk. That's because "Independence Day" is overpowering enough as an entertainment to largely offset flaws in story and character. It's much more about watching things go boom than watching relationships mend, and the cast--with a few minor exceptions--is uniformly fine.
The "July 3" sequence, which features our initial attempts at alien communication, the devastating strike and counterstrike and an investigation into the anatomy and psychology of the visitors, is when "Independence Day" is at its strongest, delivering genuine thrills and chills to rival some of the best moments in the "Alien" trilogy for sheer shock value. Emmerich is also good here at showing us the solidarity that forces itself upon a diverse array of people from all corners of the earth, though he never follows through on this concept as much as he seems to have intended.
The visual effects shots in "Independence Day," especially those during the initial alien attack, deserve special mention for their unflinching detail and seeming reality when depicting such catastrophic events as the destruction of the White House and the Empire State Building. This combination of computer imaging, more conventional miniatures and other technologies is "Independence Day"'s strongest asset.
"Independence Day" only really begins to lose us a little during the "July 4" sequence that ends the film, as everything becomes a bit too bellicose and preposterous to stomach easily. The actions ultimately taken to combat the well-defended visitors don't seem entirely logical or feasible, while we are never given enough information about the aliens, their abilities, or their intents to fully engage us in the final battles. We're just supposed to sit back and have a rip-roaring good time at the movies--no questions asked--and thankfully, that philosophy manages to work more often than not.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle that "Independence Day" never quite overcomes is something quite out of its control. The very concept at work here may be just a bit too familiar to work beyond a certain expected level of unadulterated, visceral entertainment. Earlier in the summer, I said it would take a lot in order for "Independence Day" to out-do David Twohy's smaller-scale "The Arrival" in terms of storytelling originality, suspense and virtuoso direction, and the verdict is that Emmerich and company fall short of a mark set only a few months ago. "Independence Day," for all its high-cost trappings, never brims with the same sense of ingenuity and intelligence that grace Twohy's film.
In an age in which the movies seem to have shown us everything there possibly is to show, it takes something extra--even from a high-concept project like "Independence Day"--to fully satisfy and enthrall us. We need movies like "True Lies" and "Mission: Impossible" that seem wholly original and consistently innovative visions, imbued with the ability to work on a level of emotional connection as well. As it stands, "Independence Day" never quite reaches that peak. It's highly satisfying brain candy that leaves you on an adrenaline high, but feeling somewhat empty inside. B-