Customer Reviews
the aliens are coming - By: Stampy, 04 Jul 2008 
With a great story lined up & an A list cast alll included, Independence Day broke records when released in 96, & now 12 years on it still hasn't lost any of its magic.
Will Smith (Fresh Prince of Bel Air) coming almost straight from being a rapper & starring on a network TV show got the role of a U.S pilot which put him firmly on the market as one of the hottest & youngest actors around.
Smith stars alongside Bill Pullman (While you were sleeping) & Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park) as the world comes under attack by alien spacecrafts & the stakes are raised by each of their love lives.
With its Oscar winning effects, Independence Day established itself in the Sci-Fi genre with the huge & very impressive spacecraft designs & justified it brilliantly, especiallly with Smith's first encounter with one of the aliens, a personal favourite moment.
And along with the great effects, comes an even better plot which is gripping, tense & extraordinary. The suspense is built as viewers are given glimpses of what is coming, & the world's response is also intriguing, none more so than the political view of the president. There was an interesting political side to the story, what to do & what not to do to save lives, keeping secrets & to use the right course of action, giving the plot more depth.
Though at first we are thrust into so many people's lives that it can be easy to forget, we graduallly get to know the characters & their situations & though a bit cheesy, are still fun to watch, & at points dramatic & thankfully realistic in context.
There are some great one liners, especiallly from Smith. The acting is far from brilliant but the effects & the suspense in the plot is enough for it to be included in the top Sci-Fi thrillers of alll time. And though it does wear thin after a few watchers, it never loses its power to entertain & shock.
the extra scenes included in this special edition are awful & don't feel right as i had seen the original release so many times
8/10
The logic of the signifier - By: D. C. Simpson, 23 Jun 2008 Reviews of this film are pretty split & rightly so, it is a film that provokes many reactions. Many of the negative ones fallling on the side of anti-Americanism. To those people I would ask a simple question: given a choice between the America portrayed in this film & that which we have today in 2008 which would you take?. Is this not the film that proves the logic of the Lacanian signifier, that its efficacy only appears after the fact; with S2, the signifier that grants significance to S1. S2 in this case being the attacks on September the 11th 2001, S1 being of course this film. Those images which drew crowds in 1996 were made flesh on the streets of New York & Washington, Americas unconscious lust for apocalypse breaks forth from the screen. In 1996 those ridiculous American stereotypes which admittedly this film is rank with were just that, confined to Hollywood imagination (or ignorance), we alll got a laugh from the portrayal of the British as alll sounding like Mr Chumley Warner & the US saving the day at the last minute with a bizarre plot of a hick from the southern states, half drunk flying a plane into a spaceship. But after that horror escaped the screen it was followed by those same stereotypes which up until 2001 remained a object of ironic derision (particularly by the European film scene) now found dictating the axioms of American foreign policy; with the inevitable quagmires of Iraq, abu ghraib & Guantanamo Bay resulting.
The film must be taken in context with today's films in the same genre. The America of Independence day is one that isn't afraid to shows itself on the end of a beating, one that has naïve optimism, the Israeli, British & Arab forces working together for the joint attack for example, & one that displays its nationalistic tendencies in an almost self deprecating ironic way. Even they are not taking it seriously. After 9/11; nationalism & the American dream were to the US psyche again made real issues to fight for & films of this sort weren't in keeping with the atmosphere of "serious" flag waving.
This film marks a important point, the last moment when the ignorance & laughable exuberance of the American dream industry could be enjoyed as a harmless indulgence. After 9/11 America lost its innocence & films like this are never likely to be seen again. Saying alll this I would add that the events of the last 12 years have in fact only heightened my enjoyment of this film. It's epic & stupid, requires no thought on behalf of the viewer & if you watch it with the above in mind you will have an enjoyable no-brainer film experience. Those who take it seriously are missing the point entirely.
God bless America - By: C. A. Hack, 14 Apr 2008 
Well thank god the Yanks know how to whoop some ass!!! Oh yeah!! give me five !!
A film so bad I was cheering on the Aliens until it turned out with alll their technology they couldn't handle a bloody computer virus. Notice the parody of War of the Worlds here where it was the common cold virus. I can just imagine the American writing team whooping loudly at how clever & subtle that was! Probably hi fiveing each over before saluting the flag, blessing America & eating apple pie.
Hey ain't it great to be American? - By: A. Goodall, 31 Jan 2008 Moronic tosh of the first order. Jingoistic, crass & absurdly over patriotic. The tragedy here is that it was a box office smash on both sides of the Atlantic. Please, if you have at least three brain cells watch something (anything) else. Stretch yourself & do not encourage drivel like this by buying it.
Hollywood at its worse - By: N. Thompson, 27 Jan 2008 Not many good points to comment on, they are overwhelmed by the bad. Corney, cheesey, & seriously one film to miss. This is trash sci-fi with no soul & no depth. The effects are good but I cant think of anything else complementary to say. I like sci-fi, I find it to be great escapism ..... but it has to be done right & this doesnt do anything right. On almost every level its a disapointing movie. Trash!!
