Rating: 
Summary: I4 Rocks!
Review: Oh, man! This is definitely one of the cooler testosterone-fueled movies I've seen in a long time! When I sit and stare at a screen for any great length of time, I like to be educated or just have a good time. I4 is pure entertainment, out to do nothing but excite you. The special effects were satisfyingly awesome and the overall pace quick--funny at the right time, hair-raising at others. I love action films and I enjoy sci-fi, but am seldom impressed with what I see. This movie is well worth the money--rent it first, and once you're hooked, add it to your Guilty Pleasures Collection!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I remember when the previews came out, it looked like an amazing movie. When I went to see it in the theater, what started out mediocre went straight to ridiculous. I don't mind the occasional holes in a plot, but these are craters! Like when they give the aliens' computer a virus? Imagine the aliens running the same operating system as us! Or after they shoot the first ship down, wouldn't the aliens figure it out and prevent it? The list goes on and on. The plot becomes terribly cartoonish and juvenile to the point I was actually embarassed being in the theater watching it. I give it 2 stars for some of the special effects.
Rating:
Summary: What if humans were treated like we dominate the animals?
Review: This may not be the most profound movie about aliens and prospective human enslavement/extermination, but it's sure the most fun! The computer generated special effects, like those of Jurassic Park, were examples of the most impressive technological developments in cinematography in years. With the exception of a few Matrix-like camera tricks that have been developed, nothing much has visibly improved in movie technology to the layperson since the days of ID4. Audio was breathtaking. Characters were fairly well-developed and likeable for a testosterone-based shoot-em-up. It had enough love story elements to keep the soft-core audeience intrigued. Intellectually stimulating enough not to be ludicrous. What is there to complain about? The most impressive part of the flick is that the whole thing could really happen...if you believe in that sort of thing! Kind of makes you think about your place in the universe. But not so hard that you can't sleep at night. Great movie!
Rating: 
Summary: All in Good Fun
Review: Well hear it is:
If you don't know what the movie is about please read...I only want to say that if you like special effects in movies this one was great.
DVD features:
They have a version of the movie with some deleted scenes (9 minutes longer) which is better then just having the deleted scenes seperate.
A commentary of the special effects guy is included within the normal version of the movie. It is well worth listening to. very entertaining.
Good Documentary and well worth the price for just the extras.
Rating:
Summary: Independence Dumb
Review: A charismatic Will Smith and a boring, bland Bill Pullman take on world-destroying aliens in this crowd-pleasing, brain-draining disaster flick from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who'd go on to make the even worse "Godzilla." More subtle than "Armageddon," and twice as funny as "Mars Attacks," this baby features the largest collection of stereotyped characters since Irwin Allen released "Earthquake" in Sensurround.
Honestly, Smith is the best thing about this movie; he proves he has the big-screen presence to carry a film. Or maybe he comes off so well because all the other characters are papier-mache, or something like that. Jeff Goldblum plays... well, Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch despoils his formerly decent film career as Goldblum's Jewish Dad (he wouldn't be out of place in a 1930's radio show). Then there's Harvey Fierstein as the Funny Gay Guy, and Harry Connick, Jr. as the Doomed Best Friend, and Mary McDonnell as the Saintly First Lady. Factor in Randy Quaid as the comic-relief Crazy Guy and couple of Cute Kids with mooncalf eyes. Somewhere in there we get strippers, a marital reconciliation, a wedding and a computer virus, plus a lot of heartfelt moments carefully lifted from better movies. And explosions, explosions, explosions.
This is one of those movies where unheralded billions die in spectacular SFX fireballs and CGI imagery, but a dog gets a slow motion leap to safety. Granted, the effects are sharp and the battle scenes are truly massive. But as long as the dog survives, why should we care about any of the people?
This DVD release features a pristine widescreen print and tons of extras so you can get the full, empty "ID4" experience. Actually, you might have more fun playing with the special features and just avoiding the movie altogether. It's big, loud and silly.
Rating: 
Summary: Hollywood!! STOP Making Movies Like This!!!
Review: This movie redefines the term "awful", and will have you cursing the makers of this movie for the two precious hours of your life they stole from you. Absolutely everything is simply terrible. The special effects are predictable, the acting is pathetic, and the script is insulting to anyone with an IQ over 50. Why! Why was such an obvious piece of "you know what" of a movie given the green light!? And why did it make so much money at the box office!? And why is there a need to release a second, Five Star, version of the DVD!? Please...I beg you...DO NOT buy this movie under any circumstances!! There are so many excellent movies out there that deserve your attention. Independence Day is NOT one of them!!
Rating:
Summary: A five star movie for morons
Review: But it's a two star movie for me. Hollywood serves up a big old helping of stupidity for it's audience. Don't you people feel insulted when moviemakers assume you are so stupid that they can write a plot like this movie has? If you keep paying to watch movies that pander to the lowest common denominator like this movie does, they will continue to make such pabulum. How can you people give this movie 5 stars? That is the problem with Amazons rating system, people give anything they like a 5 star rating. This movie is not a 5 star movie.
Rating:
Summary: Welcome to Earth!! - *WHAMMO!!*
Review: Huge alien ships descend on Earth, wiping out whole cities with their death-rays while themselves remaining safe behind their impenetrable energy screens. Those left by the death-rays are annihilated by swarms of enemy fighters that fly in huge, insect-like clouds (and are similarly shielded). Not even nukes can stop these guys. But one man has the brainstorm that may save the world. This was THE popcorn flick to catch in 1996, a giddy pleasure combining the right mix of FX, can-do ingenuity and patriotism. Bill Pullman plays the President, an ex-fighter jock who starts off telling his aides that "we have no cause to fear" until the alien baddies demolish the White House. Jeff Golblume plays one of his stock characters - the brilliant-but-awkward type who despite his lowly tech job working for a cable TV service run by Harvey Fierstein, comes up with the idea that may defeat the aliens. Will Smith is the Marine who flies his F-18 like something out of Star Wars, and comes up with some of the flick's best lines. As a blockbuster, this flick grossed cash while naturally inflaming critics. In some ways, this alien-invasion epic deserves both the praise and criticism it's suffered, though for reasons different than fans and panners would suggest. The special effects sometimes show their limits (especially at the end when the alien ships fly across the screen like mosquitoes, as opposed to those in "Star Wars" which alternate between being a dot in a huge on a frame of film in a complex background to filling the screen), and much of the visual impact is lost unless you've got the wide-screen version. The dialog won't win anybody any Oscars (the best lines sound conspicuously ad-libbed; the rest sounds no better than "you're father was a hero, you should be proud of him"), and some promising characters and ideas just get tossed out completely (especially those dealing with "Area-51" and the head geeky scientist played by Trek alum Brent Spiner) before the script has any fun with them. WHY THIS MOVIE ROCKS (ANYWAY): The flick's imperfect FX are still spectacular. Clearly the design team was inspired by Star Wars, but had more than a creative nod than the hordes responsible for perpetrating the past 2 decades worth of SW rip-offs on us ("StarCrash" or "Message From Space" come to mind). Some of the characters rise above the sort of cardboard surface you'd expect, or otherwise allow remnants of previous roles they've played to give more charm to their roles here (like Robert Loggia as a general, or Harry Connick Jr. in an inspired bit of miscasting as Will Smith's wing man). But above all, ID4 excels because its makers took an idea that was never really original but also took the bold step of handling it all - militant, locust like aliens, epic-scale dogfights, huge motherships, impenetrable force-fields - as if it had never been done before, and giving the whole premise an unmatched sense of depth. Get yourself the DVD for the summer.
Rating:
Summary: Great blockbuster fun
Review: A lot of people beforehand have slated this movie for lack of plot or over-reliance of special effects. However, the joy of 'Independence Day' is precisely that - it never pretends to be anything else. As pure escapist fun it's the top of its range. The premise is childishly simple: have a group of alien ships hover over the world's great cities and watch how the humans react. Not only is this an alien movie that takes advantage of the 'X-Files' phenomena but it's also a disaster movie, with there being a cross-section of America reacting to the events around them. The acting is surprisingly good whilst remaining thankfully low-key. Smith especially shows his star potential, and can obviously carry a movie by himself. Around him are the more seasoned actors such as Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman as the president. The special effects are mind-blowing and the creators obviously had a lot of fun making the movie, although at times melodrama does threaten to sink everything. What's perhaps most cloying though is its blatant vision of a world crisis that only affects America and one that only America can combat. However, the hoky message about human spirit is tongue-in-cheek and this is a cut above most blockbusters.
Rating:
Summary: No Other Great Sci-Fi Movie Since ID4
Review: After reading some other reviews, I am wondering if they are reviewing the right movie. ID4 was a great movie. It was well written and well directed. An even greater quality of this movie - missed by so many brainless scifi movies since - is the beautifully BALANCED action sequences and special effects. You want to get an idea of UNBALANCE, check out "Armageddon". Yes, ID4 did not have alot of story (nor was it meant to); neither did "Star Wars". What SciFi fan did not like SW?
|
