'Independence Day'

I watched Independence Day twice in the theaters. I had a friend who had left the country for about three weeks that summer. When he returned, he naturally wanted to see the highest grosisng film of the summer. So, I went again after having seen it on opening weekend.

I found it entertaining then, but I hadn't seen it since. Looking back, the writing is awful, the special effects entirely overrated, the acting preposterous and the film is simply ridiculous on every level.

What I loved initially was Will Smith's character's cocky nature. It comes off as trite these days, but at the time it put the former Fresh Prince on the film map. Although he'd been in Bad Boys the year before, Independence Day was his true jumping-off point. Ironically or not, he's done quite a number of science fiction from I, Robot, Hancock, Men in Black and I am Legend.

What kills me about Independence Day are the shoehorned one-liners, the American jingoism and the blatant shilling for "green" living, even way back in 1996.

The one liners are awful. In 1996, they probably sounded cool. Now, they seem like the actors are reading them off a script in these super-attitudinal ways. Everyone from Randy Quaid, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Connick Jr., Judd Hirsch and Brett Spiner was guilty.

The "green" theme, I think, was not noticed at the time I first saw it. In 1996, we had worries of the hole in the ozone layer, but that was about it. Living ecologically responsible wasn't such a lifestyle choice back then outside of using non-aerosol hair spray and recycling.

Jeff Goldblum's character force feeds us his liberal, tree-hugging rhetoric ad nauseum. He throws something away, it's sure to pan to a reciprocal with a "recycling" stick on it.

As for the nationalism, the film is called Independence Day. The attacks happen over Independence Day weekend. It set up for the perfect speech from fake president Bill Pullman, or Lone Star as I like to call him. If you want to sell shitloads of movie tickets, write in a bunch of patriotic mumbo-jumbo and it'll work every time.