(From IMDb.com)
The powers-that-be waited 20 years to take another swing at the big spaceship and battle to save our planet that was super-hit Independence Day.
Hey, in two decades, movie technology has come so far. Director Roland Emmerich had four others take part in shaping his script, Dean Devlin, Nicolas Wright, James Vanderbilt and James A. Wood. Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman and Judd Hirsch agreed to come back to allow their characters battle the baddies and their even bigger mother of a ship again.
And they all fail. Oh, no, not in saving civilization in the fivesome-crafted ending, which leaves an opening even bigger than the 3,000-mile wide alien ship for a part three. No, this is a collective-sized snoozer of an adventure film.
Could the absence of Will Smith and the charisma of his character from the original put such a bad mojo on the whole thing, no matter that they wrote his son into the story?
The daughter of former President played by Pullman is one of the newbies, as a caretaker for her addled-from-the-previous-skirmish dad and a former military pilot. Other military pilots about, including pivotal rogue played by Liam Hemsworth. That’s a lot of flyers considering that one of the plot points is that all of the people of Earth have been peaceful toward each other since vanquishing the alien threat.
But they’ve been monitoring space and the buggers left behind.
Can somebody here please save our world? (From IMDb.com)
Somehow all of it comes off as dreadfully boring. There’s no connection to the new characters. The old characters seem tired and bored. Everybody seems totally unprepared to live up to the film’s advertising motto of “We’ve had twenty years to prepare. So have they.”
Worst of all, the action scenes look as if they could have been lifted from the cutting floor of the first film as far as action and technology. Yeah, they are that familiar in look and feel.
The full house surrounding my dear wife Karen and I at the new Movie Tavern in Township 5 in the Syracuse suburb of Camillus for a 6:40 p.m. Friday show on opening night made nary a sound of oohs or aahs for the ups and downs of the plot.
Bummer of a pre-holiday-weekend blockbuster wannabe sequel, it was.
Mark Bialczak 
i really had no desire to see this, and thanks for giving me more reasons not to. thanks for taking one for the team!
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At least I had a good dinner and wine during it, Beth. 🙂
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Darn it Mark (you of the wonderful first name). I was planning on seeing this flick today, on my day off. You may have doomed me to the 50″ screen again, and kept me out of the malls. Have you ever done a follow-up on your scathing review of Destiny’s Cheesecake Factory?
Thanks for saving me the price of a theater ticket.
Mark Sukoenig
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Yes, the Cheesecake Factory did redeem itself somewhat on a subsequent visit, Dr. Mark. You can find my write-up by entering the restaurant name in the search on the right alley on the blog. 🙂 I hope saving you the movie ticket price made your day off better, good Syracuse sir. 🙂
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Nope. As soon as I heard Will Smith was out, I lost interest. Apparently, from box office numbers, so did many others. Thanks for the heads-up, Mark. ☺
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Smarter people than I stayed home, Van. Somebody had to review it, though. 😮
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Yea…same old stuff. Maybe odd numbered sequels are better, eh? Unless it’s Star Trek. 😉
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I won’t go see this Three, Scott. The new Star Trek looks great on the trailer. RIP young star.
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As an aside Mark I did a guest post over at Cordelia’s Mom’s. If you have the time to drop by for a read I would be honored. Thank you. https://cordeliasmomstill.com/2016/06/27/quinn-plays-god-guest-post-by-paul-curran/comment-page-1/#comment-17681
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Sure thing, Paul.
Hey, gang, CM’s place is a cool hang-out, Paul or no Paul!
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Well darn. I was kind of looking forward to this one. But thank you Mark for saving me the disappointment of a wasted evening. (I did just hear the score from the finale, and at least the music sounds good. )
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Yes, well, downloading the song is waaaaay less expensive, Barb. 😉
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Always nice to see Data, though, right?
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You know what you like, Ross. 😮
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I hereby declare my independence from ever having to watch this movie, Mark, thanks to you.
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Glad to keep you from two minutes shy of 2 hours of indifference or worse, Ann.
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Thanks Mark. Sequels seldom hit the mark in my experience – with a few exceptions like Star Trek.
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Some episodic stories work well, such as Star Trek as you mentioned, Paul. They have characters that scream to our psyches and emotions, I think. This one, not at all.
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