Thursday, June 6, 2013

Independence Day (1996)


Not your usual movie review


With Independence Day 2 reportedly in the making, here's a fun review of the 90s Pseudo-Action Sci-fi adventure. (The original review is here.)

Starring - Millions of dollars of special effects that still manage to look like sets Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland built in the barn!

Meet: super anonymous pentagonians spewing pseudo military mumbo jumbo and the cute looking brylcreem president Bill Pullman - he's an ace pilot, he's the no-nonsense president and he's a darn good father, too! all-in-one guy!

Meet: The generic gay guy, Harvey Feinstein doing generic gay business. "Oooh! I'd better call my mother!" The generic old Jew, Judd Hirsh. He stoops, he complains, his every word a sarcastic quip. 

Meet: The Movie! A war movie, an alien movie, a love story! what a deal! all-in-one all inclusive package.

Just listen to this minimalist dialogue that is the great empowering and heart-warming lesson of this film: HEY! We could all write this! 

1. "Get me the secretary of defense!" (significant pause) "THEN WAKE HIM!!" 
2. "Address the nation. There's gonna be a lot of frightened people out there." "Yeah, I'm one of 'em."
3. "You think we'll get to Washington and they'll be there?" (Poignant look) Jeff Goldblum opens the computer, "yap!,yap!,yap!," closes the computer, draws little circles all over the president's letterhead, opens the computer AGAIN, whirls it around... AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!!!!! A CLOCK! THAT'S IT! WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!!! 

MORE WITTY DIALOGUE! "And then what?" "Check mate." "OH MY GOD!!" OH MY GOD IS RIGHT! The Shadow: Surprised looks (Ooh! It's big!) from the Hollywood Sign to the White House lawn to Central Park.


The Aliens: They've got an infinitely superior technology but no Virus Scanners. Doh! See the president outrun a fire ball and Will Smith's chick Vivica Fox : the only person in LA clever enough to find a cubby hole of safety. Rats can do it but, apparently, Americans cannot. 

'Terrible movie but entertaining anyway.' Put Will Smith and an Alien in a wave-making, sex pool scene and maybe we'd do the same. It's July 4th and all's well in the world. With a wisecracking, alien-punching Military, Celebrate your Independence!

1 comment:

  1. I was one of the few that did not particularly like ID4, when it was first released. It had some great moments but I thought that overall, it was kind of empty; all style and no substance. Plus I had some twerp behind me that clapped at every scene that she thought was clap-worthy; which was every other scene. After a while, I was ready to feed her to the aliens. I could not move because their was not a seat left in the entire theater. It was PACKED. A sequel being planned could be a good thing but please get someone else to write the script other than Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. Emmerich can direct it but get someone fresh to write the script.

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