Independence Day 2?
Hollywood tries to milk a cow that really never had much milk.
I have long railed against the endless proliferation of remakes and worthless sequels that Hollywood seems intent on spewing forth from every orifice. Some sequels are nice continuations or reimaginings of a good story, and often times will enhance or improve upon the first film. Terminator 2 for example. Some sequels are completely unneccessary blood ticks leeching onto an otherwise great film like a tapeworm that lives in your wallet. Boondock Saints 2. Some rare sequels are a dramatic game changer that takes a bad movie and makes the franchise awesome. Star Trek the Wrath of Khan is the penultimate example of this miracle.
However, occasionally we get the other rarity, a sequel to a really bad movie that looks like it is only going to suck more. I liken this to spending months getting rid of your warts only to have a brand new family of them surface just when you thought you were safe. I think the recent Wrath of the Titans is probably one of the best examples of this unpleasant phenomenon.
Thus we come to the horrible sounding sequel to Independence Day. While I am a fan of alien invasion films (Alien image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) this one is to science fiction what Justin Beiber is to rock and roll. In spite of what everyone who knows nothing about science fiction thinks it is truly awful, and only a star studded cast and decent special effects saved it. To anyone who thinks it was good I offer the following challenge: aside from watching the White House get blown up try to recall any detail regarding the story or plot (I can recall it because I am cursed with a memory that remembers every plot I have ever seen but can’t recall anything I have read in a text book). The more you can remember the better the movie, right?
So we come to the looming possibility of Independence Day 2, most likely sans Will Smith (in spite of his poor choice of scripts I actually like him as an actor). What could this possible add to the story? And before you answer that understand that director Roland Emmerich has never had much interest in doing great stories or anything that is not a special effects exxxxxxxxxtravaganza (in addition to the original Independence Day his filmography includes the Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla 1998, and 2012. Science just called and wants to put a hit out on this guy). Odds are it will be a simple rehashing in hopes of culling 60% of the $811 million that the original made. Most likely it will have some great special effects, some early 20’s heartthrobs (Chris Helmsworth, I can here the call now), 3D to give me a headache, a story that makes one wish for the complexity of See Dick and Jane, and an abuse of science that is akin to childhood molestation.
So what does this mean? For any of you with a brain nothing, since odds are you will skip this travesty. For me it is like my doctor predicting an impending bout of irritable bowel syndrome triggered by massive diarrhia and causing projectile vomiting, and then giving me a release date. Being a reviewer is not always fun in the sun, let me tell you.
Anyway, I need to get back and do my worst 10 of 2012. Nora just saw Flight and is going to review it later. I hope you liked her review. She has a different style than I do (generally less analogies in the form of body function descriptions) but I enjoy it. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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