Independence Day: Resurgence - Movie Review

Starring Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Jesse T. Usher, William Fichtner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Brent Spiner, Judd Hirsch, Sela Ward, Joey King, Travis Tope, Viveca A. Fox, Angelababy, Patrick St. Esprit, Deobia Oparei, and Robert Loggia.
Written by Nicolas Wright, James A. Woods, James Vanderbilt, Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich.
Directed by Roland Emmerich.

★★

The first Independence Day movie came at the right time. America was feeling pretty good about itself in 1996. There hadn't been an ensemble space-battle movie for a while. Will Smith wasn't a star yet. It wound up being a great summer movie.

In the past 20 years, we've seen a few more Roland Emmerich world-destruction movies, we've gone through 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, ISIS, a huge recession, and a sluggish recovery. This movie is able to tell a story of how awesome Earth would have been over the past 20 years had the first movie actually happened. If aliens want to visit Earth, either as friends or enemies, it would do wonders for the world economy.

Will Smith passed, and so we get Liam Hemsworth. Sure, he has Hunger Games cred, but when you look at titles like Paranoia and Cut Bank, Liam has shown he just doesn't have the charisma for this type of role.

I saw this in 3D on IMAX (Hooray for $5 Tuesday!) My son liked it. It has a blatant open-ending for a sequel, and since most of the characters survive, I'm sure they're all game for it. I just don't see this one burrowing its way into pop culture the way the first one did.

Random Movie Stuff - 9/6/13

- Matt Damon's the latest to join Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.  Not much is known about it, but rumors are leaking out that it takes place in the near-future when climate change has killed off most of agriculture, but a wormhole has opened, and scientists journey to try to find a sustainable planet in different dimensions.  It stars Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, David Oyelowo, Ellen Burstyn, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy and John Lithgow.

- Roland Emmerich is planning on rebooting Stargate, and to do so as a trilogy. The 1994 original starred Kurt Russell, James Spader and Jaye Davidson and spawned several successful TV series.

- Al Pacino and Holly Hunter will star in Manglehorn, about a man living with the regrets of a past crime that cost him the love of his life.

- Tom Hiddleston (Thor) has joined Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak, a haunted house movie that also stars Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam and Mia Wasikowska.  He replaces Benedict Cumberbatch, who dropped out last month.

- Rupert Grint (Harry Potter) has joined the cast of Enemy of Man, a new spin on Macbeth starring Game of Throners Sean Bean and Charles Dance.

- The new RoboCop trailer is online: