 Good morning. In less than a minute, ID4 will be feuding its sequel on YouTube for viewers around the world. And you will be watching the largest movie battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have a new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July and you'll once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday. But as the day of the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, we fewed our Independence Day. Time to kick the tires and light the fires, Big Daddy. We have a very fun cast of characters of all walks of life. ID4 was the big coming-out party for Will Smith as a blockbuster actor, so it was very disappointing to learn he wouldn't be coming back for Independence Day resurgence. Fortunately, most of the rest of the cast made the return trip 20 years later. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, and Judd Hirsch don't miss a beat jumping right back into their respective characters. And the new cast don't have the presence of the originals. Liam Hemsworth comes out looking the best here, giving a fun performance, while Jesse T Usher is unfortunately very cardboard. The president's daughter is grown up nicely, played by Maki Monroe. The secondary cast is where the picture really falls flat. 1996 flick had a range of great supporting players, such as the crazy farmer Russell, played by Randy Quaid. Then there's the first lady handled excellently by Mary McDonnell. And then there's James Reborn doing his typical role as an argumentive douchebag. Adam Baldwin, Margaret Collin, and Robert DeLoglia also lend a hand. Vivica A. Fox shows up in the sequel for a very small portion and leaves very unceremoniously. It was also great seeing data from Star Trek Generations back as the kooky scientist, and I quite enjoyed the route they went with the alien telepathy. Really, though, they could have used any excuse they wanted to bring him back, because he's just so good in these flicks. Hell, they could have had him split his soul into seven pieces, come back via horcrux, and that would have been perfectly acceptable. Welcome to Earth. Again. Unfortunately, no one uttered that line in the sequel. The story of Independence Day is neither profound nor is it complex. In 1996, just seeing the events unfold was more than enough for the audience. Nothing of that skill was done before, to my knowledge. I saw the movie three times in theaters and would talk and quote it for years to come. Now that's what I call a close encounter. Is that glass bulletproof? No, sir. They're using our satellites against us. Hello, boys. I'm back! I think most of us know how dumb the Alien Windows 95 virus is, yet we can look past it as fans because there's so much awesomeness to be had. The sheer spectacle of seeing some of the biggest landmarks being destroyed as millions of people overlook them as they take their final breath is amazing. The aliens came back and kicked the living shit out of us, and the world retaliated together. Fast forward. 20 years later, that's my fast forward. And we have almost the same movie, Beat for Beat. And while I think it could have worked again, I mean, it certainly did for Star Wars Episode 7, they just screwed way too much up here. It's a mess. Exposition pours out of this film's ass. The new recruits are cookie-cutter versions of their better parents. The biggest annoyance, though, was how often director Roland Emmerich cuts away from the intense action. Holy shit, the giant tsunami's about to kill Julius Levinson. How is he possibly gonna get out of this situation? He's gonna be crushed to- oh, the scene's over. Oh, okay. Well, is he alive? 20 minutes later. Oh, okay, he's alive. ID4 easily takes the win, since the concept of a big-budget alien takeover picture was new territory. Of course, there's plenty of older concepts that do this story, close encounters of the third kind, war of the world, the day the Earth stood still, invasion of the body snatchers, but none of them are near this expansive. Nothing is near this big. There's an interesting and I'm sure unintentional parallel between the movies and the real-life timeframe going on. The film takes place 20 years after the events of the last movie, just like this movie takes place 20 years after the first film was released. Humans have since blended alien technology into their everyday lives. Weapons, aircrafts, etc. I'll use this hybrid cold fusion bullshit. I don't know. Schools still get no funding because the buses still suck. The thing is, none of those advances mattered in the picture. The aliens came back and beat us even easier than the first time. The parallel I'm referring to is just like the tech in the film. We have grown leaps and bounds in real-life filmmaking. The CGI, the tech we're using is far advanced. Yet in both cases, it doesn't mean jack shit if you don't have a good story, good cast, good moments. We have bigger explosions and ships, but the soul is gone. Even scenes that attempted drama are so terribly handled, we don't get proper time to digest the information. The first movie was paced much better, giving us emotional weight and real consequences. Helping these moments along was a terrific score done by David Arnold. I'm not sure why they didn't bring him back for the second installment, but he was sorely missed. Cut presidential speech is still the most inspirational dialogue I've encountered in a film. Independence Day resurgence tries to mimic that role to almost zero effect, leaving the audience with eye rolls instead of claps. As for the special effects, I remember being amazed by the behind-the-scenes featurette, showing how they built miniatures of famous landmarks and then blowing the shit out of them with real explosions. In this new movie, the cities are getting ripped out of the ground and going up in the air, then falling back down. I can't quite put my dick on what's missing in the new movie. There's plenty of explosions and things getting sucked up into the air and thrown around, but there's no weight to it. There's no impact anymore. And I didn't try to make a funny joke there with the weight thing, because people are in the air. The phrase, be careful what you wish for, has rang oh so true for me in the last couple years, giving me sequels to movies at one time I thought I really wanted. Dumb and Dumber 2, Zoolander 2, and now Independence Day resurgence have all been complete failures. Independence Day less so than those other aforementioned movies, because those were just beyond terrible. This movie is at least somewhat watchable. It was still fun to see most of the cast reunite for another fight against the alien scum, and there is fun popcorn action to be had. Impactful or unique, it is not though, and there was a much better film that could have been made. Which Independence Day movie makes you salute the hardest? Please leave a comment, vote for your winner, and remember this is more than just reviews, this is Movie Feuds. Checkmate. Checkmate. I can't do it like, I can't do it like this.