Today’s quick review: Independents’ Day. After aliens calling themselves the Orions annihilate the White House, the fate of the world falls to Vice President Meredith Raney (Fay Gauthier) and her advisors, Senator Randall Raney (Jon Wright) and General Roundtree (Sal Landi). When the Orions demand that humanity evacuate the Earth and move to another planet, the new President must decide whether or not their intentions are benevolent.
Independents’ Day is a budget sci-fi action movie about an alien invasion. Technologically outmatched by the Orions, humanity faces a choice between accepting the aliens’ demands and fighting back with everything they have. To its credit, Independents’ Day makes good use of the resources at its disposal and tells a well-paced and coherent story. However, weak acting, a generic plot, and dull action keep it from holding any real appeal.
Independents’ Day acquits itself better than the lower tier of budget sci-fi movies. The plot hangs together reasonably well, the CGI is cheap but serves its purpose, and the movie understands how to set up conflicts and see them through. The movie also revolves around an interesting sci-fi question: If aliens make contact, how will we know if they can be trusted? All of this makes Independents’ Day surprisingly watchable.
But in concrete terms, Independents’ Day has very little to offer. The few interesting parts of its story are drowned out by generic filler and an unimpressive cast. The plot takes shortcuts that undermine its credibility and sense of craft. The action works better than the action seen in some budget flicks, but there is no innovation or creativity to it. All in all, everything Independents’ Day does is done better in other movies.
Fans of budget sci-fi will find that Independents’ Day has a couple of nice traits but nothing that makes it stand out. It avoids the worst pitfalls of the genre but never does anything clever or unexpected, meaning that it misses out on the one unique opportunity budget science fiction has. This makes Independents’ Day a somewhat competent but ultimately forgettable pick, one that’s outclassed by films with more spectacle or more spirit.
For a bigger budget movie with a similar name and premise, check out Independence Day. For a more nuanced story about first contact, try Arrival. For a tale of resistance against an occupying force, try Red Dawn or Occupation.
[2.1 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5720450/). I give it a 4.0 for bland but serviceable budget sci-fi.