by Drew Howerton, section editor

Roland Emmerich’s 1996 disaster film Independence Day ranks high on my list of favorite dumb, awesome science fiction movies. Think Starship Troopers or Pacific Rim. It perfectly captured the age-old classic struggle between unstoppable evil and underdog good, with the added bonus of Jeff Goldblum’s particular brand of stuttering that he calls acting. When I saw that sequel Independence Day: Resurgence was in the works, I didn’t kid myself that some cinematic masterpiece was in the works. But I was pleasantly surprised with a sequel that was dumber and cheesier than the original.

Resurgence is a strange summer blockbuster because unlike its colleagues, it doesn’t even bother to take itself seriously.  In one of the most absurdly awesome scenes in the film, pilot Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth) flies through the gravitational pull of a massive alien ship, which rips up buildings from Asia and dumps them on top of Europe as it lands on Earth. Thousands of sophisticated fighter jets are discarded like a child tired of his play things in dizzying dogfights where it’s hard to tell which side is which.These scenes are eyeroll-worthy, but also set the pace for the film, which doles out nonstop action from start to finish. Resurgence plays more like a Saturday morning cartoon than a full-fledged movie because each action sequence bleeds into the next, making the film a blur of explosions and lasers that would make Michael Bay weep with joy. However, the action-oriented pacing comes at the expense of exposition, which struggles to make any sense as numerous plot points are introduced and tossed aside, picked back up at random points.

Resurgence picks up twenty years after the original film. Humanity is in a state of worldwide peace, having turned its effort to global defense, with its Earth Space Defense program headed by former cable repairman David Levinson. In Africa, Levinson, along with Dr. Catherine Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and warlord Dikembe Umbutu (Deobia Oparei), discovers an alien ship that has been transmitting a distress call to the homeworld. Realizing that another invasion is inevitable, they rush to the moon to warn top defense personnel, only to be interrupted as the aliens return, intent on finishing the destruction they began twenty years before. However, humanity finds its hope in both heroes of old, such as Levinson and former president Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman), and newcomers such as Morrison, his fiancee Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), and Dylan Hiller (Jessie Usher).

Unfortunately, the characters are Resurgence weakest link. Without the humor and energy that Will Smith brought to the cast of the first film, Goldblum is forced into the main spotlight, and looks more awkward than usual as he delivers one liners that don’t quite feel suited to his character. Although the main cast features newcomers such as Liam Hemsworth and Jessie Usher, they take a backseat for most of the film and their talent feels wasted, with their backstory and motivations largely hidden in the overall murky exposition. Morrison and Whitmore are supposedly in love and engaged, but other than a kiss towards the end of the film, they don’t seem to click very well. The characters feel like they’ve been put second to the dizzying scale and size of the film because the words they’ve been given to say don’t seem to carry any weight.

However, Resurgence is undeniably a beautiful film, with visual effects that are able to bring the size and scope of Emmerich’s massive world to life. In one scene, Earth’s air force is engaged in a dogfight with alien fighters, and the encounter is beautifully rendered against the backdrop of a huge alien mothership, depicting the film’s heroes as the miniscule fighting force that they really are. Resurgence’s breathtaking special effects help to make the movie what it really is: Emmerich’s sandbox for smashing large things into other large things with almost childlike enthusiasm. Visuals exist to aid the film’s only real goal, which is to captivate viewers with larger than life scenes of destruction.

Although Independence Day: Resurgence is horribly flawed and ridiculously over the top, it is still a fun movie, because it doesn’t try to make audiences think or engage them with a complicated plot, or even try to be a good movie. Instead, it embraces its role as a love letter to implausible and dumb sci-fi movies both past and present. Resurgence is impossible to take seriously because it really doesn’t even take itself seriously, leaving it free to do whatever it pleases. It takes the dizzying destruction of the first film and turns it on it’s head, not because it furthers the plot, but because it can. While Resurgence never really surpasses it’s predecessor, it manages to make a name for itself through sheer force. Despite it’s numerous plot issues and stale characters, it was hard to care when the movie was exactly as it advertised: a cheesy, awesome movie that doesn’t try too hard to please.