Film: Independence Day Resurgence
Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, William Fichtner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Judd Hirsch, Maika Monroe, Travis Tope, Jessie Usher, Brent Spiner, Vivica A. Fox
Director: Roland Emmmerich
When was the last time you saw a Indo-US scientific team battling alien invasions? “Independence Day: Resurgence” must be the nth movie in which the Chinese are preferred partners when we should be the Americans’ natural choice given our substantial contributions on the space front.
But let me answer the question in the opening sentence: We don’t figure anywhere on Hollywood space-time since we make it so darned difficult for anyone but anyone – never mind Hollywood – to make a film here. And even when they do (like the last Bond) the red tape drives them away.
That awesome railroad sequence which the Bond guys wanted to shoot in India was eventually shot in Turkey. Which is why our dearly beloved bureaucrats might like to ask themselves why no one barring Attenborough, Jackie Chan and the makers of the Best Marigold Hotel stuck their necks out to shoot here after Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And that, mind you, was way back when, in 1977 when some of you gentle readers weren’t even born.
Having said that, let me add that the predecessor of “Independence Day: Resurgence” was an action-packed sci-fi thriller about an alien invasion of Earth during Fourth of July weekend of 1996. This sequel which comes 20 years after has much the same storyline and emulates the fun and high jinks of the earlier movie.
This time around though the stakes are much higher, because the aforementioned alien creatures have an inter-galactic war on their malevolent minds. Said aliens and their spaceships are also mind-bogglingly larger. Naturally, the global community unites to collaborate on a gigantic defence program to protect the planet employing technology from a friendly extra-terrestrial, which earthlings initially mistook for an enemy. There’s a cautionary tale in this subplot – patience, not aggression, pays.
Anyway, the aliens unleash an attack of gargantuan proportions – London Bridge tumbles down, as do urban cities in the USA where the President and all her men have taken refuge in a secret bunker in the Nevada desert. I must point out that the film-makers have been circumspect for a change. Where some film-makers take unholy glee in showing the torture and humiliation of the President (before he bounces back and defeats his foes) Mr Emmerich has (prudently to my mind) desisted from showing the decimation of the poor souls hunkered down in the bunker.
What then? A scientist must emerge from his coma and former President (Bill Pullman) from retirement to save the world with help from a few brave men and women which includes the Prez’s daughter and her boyfriend (Liam Hemsworth).
The script attempts to inject some pathos and humour which pales before the techno-wizardry. Indeed, epic, grand and awesome are the words most apt for the special effects, the sets and production design. As for the cast, it valiantly tries to hold its own as the film moves towards a most satisfying climax.
