{"id":12369,"date":"2025-07-07T23:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=12369"},"modified":"2025-07-07T23:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T03:38:15","slug":"independence-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/07\/07\/independence-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Independence Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Independence Day <\/strong>(1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th<\/sup> Century Fox\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 153 minutes (Extended Version)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, sci-fi action, violence and destruction, some sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Roland Emmerich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karl Walter Lindenlaub\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 2, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Margaret Colin, Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, Harvey Fierstein, James Rebhorn, Harry Connick Jr., Adam Baldwin, Brent Spiner, Ross Bagley, Mae Whitman, James Duval, Lisa Jakub, Giuseppe Andrews, Bill Smitrovich, Kiersten Warren, Devon Gummersall, Leland Orser, Erick Avari, Andrew Keegan, Lyman Ward, Malcolm Danare, Kimberly Beck, Robert Pine, Thom Barry, John Bennett Perry, Raphael Sbarge.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $306.1 million (US)\/$817.4 million (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ****<\/p>\n

\u00a0Can I just state for the record that I LOVE Independence Day<\/strong>? It\u2019s one of the last BIG summer movies I actually thought was great. It\u2019s a silly sci-fi piece about an alien invasion that destroys several major cities around the world until military forces around the world decide to fight back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As you all know, I don\u2019t have a lot of love for these idiotic, big budget, CGI-heavy movies that take over the multiplexes every summer. The only ones since ID4<\/strong> that I really love are The Dark Knight (2008), Super 8 (2011) and The Avengers (2012). What I like most about ID4<\/strong> is that it plays exactly like an Irwin Allen disaster movie from the 70s complete with an all-star cast and scenes of mass destruction. The only thing missing is the row of little boxes with the actors\u2019 faces in them at the bottom of the poster (e.g. And Henry Fonda as \u201cThe President\u201d). This is one of those movies that I salivated over for six months, ever since the teaser trailer, the one depicting a UFO obliterating the White House, showed up before one of the big Christmas movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I saw ID4<\/strong> three times at the movies, all within the same two-week period. I saw it at two separate pre-release screenings then again with my mother on July 4 (aka Independence Day) weekend. I realize that we\u2019re not talking about fine cinema here, but I frankly don\u2019t give a damn. This movie is AWESOME! It\u2019s one of the few post-80s movies that allow me to tap into my inner teenager and appreciate the sheer joy of a summertime sci-fi movie. It\u2019s completely far-fetched, it has a few plot holes and it\u2019s pretty silly, it\u2019s really an expensive throwback to the cheap UFO\/alien invasion flicks of the 50s and 60s. Well, it works and ID4<\/strong> rocks!<\/p>\n

\u00a0On July 2, an enormous mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploys several smaller (about 15 miles wide) spacecrafts to positions over several major cities around the world. Cable company employee\/MIT grad David Levinson (Goldblum, The Fly) discovers hidden transmissions in the satellites which he believes is a countdown to a major alien invasion. He and his aged father Julius (Hirsch, Taxi), with the help of his ex-wife Constance (Colin, Three Men and a Baby), gain entry to the White House to warn President Thomas Whitmore (Pullman, Spaceballs). Sure enough, David is right and several people escape the White House before the alien invaders blow it to smithereens. They lay waste to many areas of the world and it\u2019s up to a few survivors to prevent the complete annihilation of humanity.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The main hero of ID4<\/strong> is Captain Steven Hiller (Smith, Men in Black), a wise-ass Marine Corps pilot whose stripper girlfriend Jasmine (Fox, Kill Bill: Vol. 1) is among those who survived the initial attack. She and her young son Dylan (Bagley, The Little Rascals) must lead others, including the seriously injured First Lady (McDonnell, Dances with Wolves), to safety at a military base. Alcoholic Vietnam vet\/crop duster pilot Russell Casse (Quaid, Christmas Vacation) must get his three children, including one sickly son, to safety. When the call goes out for qualified pilots, Russell gladly volunteers because he\u2019s always wanted to get revenge against the aliens that he claimed abducted him ten years beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Also in the mix are Robert Loggia (Psycho II) as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and James Rebhorn (The Game) as the Secretary of Defense. In addition, singer Harry Connick Jr. plays Steve\u2019s best friend and fellow pilot, Adam Baldwin (My Bodyguard) shows up as the CO of Area 51, Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation) plays an eccentric scientist, Mae Whitman (Parenthood) plays First Daughter \u201cMunchkin\u201d and Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy) appears as David\u2019s panic-stricken boss.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What can I say? I\u2019m a sucker for a good old-fashioned disaster movies and ID4<\/strong> delivers the goods and then some. The aliens blow a lot of stuff up and tons of people get killed. The US military comes out blasting away in their fighter planes. Smith, in his first action\/sci-fi role, shows that he has true leading man potential. He gets off some of the best lines in ID4<\/strong>, like when he quips, \u201cNow that\u2019s what I call a close encounter!\u201d after punching out one of the slimy, tentacled alien baddies. But this movie isn\u2019t about performances or screenplays; it\u2019s all about sci-fi action with aliens and UFOs destroying everything and the people of Earth fighting back. In other words, it\u2019s about kicking some extra-terrestrial butt!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The storyline is great, the characters are pretty standard for this kind of movie, the special effects and alien design are cool, there\u2019s a lot of action, Pullman gets to make a rousing speech right before humanity\u2019s last stand\u2026.. hey, ID4<\/strong> is a lot of fun! One of the best things about it is that it\u2019s not a complete assault on the senses like subsequent summer blockbusters Armageddon and Transformers. Sure, it\u2019s loud and full of mayhem and destruction, but director Roland Emmerich (Stargate, 2012) appears to have a better handle on it than many of his contemporaries. Many people have complained that the ending is kind of hokey with regards to how our heroes finally defeat the aliens. They claim that it\u2019s too easy and simplistic. I say, so what? In a movie this cool, I don\u2019t mind something like that. If these folks don\u2019t like how the defeat of the aliens is brought about in ID4<\/strong>, then what do they think of how they\u2019re finally brought down in War of the Worlds? It\u2019s supposed to be silly and simplistic; it\u2019s a summer roller coaster ride. I wish all dumb summer movies were as smart as ID4<\/strong>.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Independence Day (1996)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 153 minutes (Extended Version)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, sci-fi action, violence and destruction, some sensuality)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Roland Emmerich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: David Arnold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Karl Walter Lindenlaub\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 2, 1996 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Margaret Colin, Vivica A. Fox, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Independence-Day-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12369"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12432,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12369\/revisions\/12432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}