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Independence Day (Five Star Collection)

Independence Day (Five Star Collection)

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ID4
Review: nice effects but very cheesy many plot holes and bad acting skip unless you are a fan of someone in the cast!

See Deep Impact or The Day After Tomorrow instead

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: America the beautiful
Review: Best movie to watch if you wanna see s**t blow up.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Just have fun watching it
Review: Simply put, it is an entertaining movie to watch for its special effects, its comic relief and enjoyable storyline fantasy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Your Typical Action / American Film - But It's Great!
Review: Firstly, you're amazed by the alien ship that appears, curious about the contingency plan, and then completely blown away by the explosions and special effects. This is American patriotism at its very best, yet you forget all of that with the amount of action, comedy and typical plotlines. Ok, so the acting wasn't THAT great, but you can watch this film a hundred times and never get bored. There one liners always crack you up, and once again, America is always the one that saves the day!

A simple plot - aliens threaten the world's (more so America's) existence and someone (America) has to do something about it. With a cast led by Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum and (at the time) an aspiring Will Smith, that were all very good to watch, not forgetting the rather nice looking Vivica A. Fox as Smith's fiancé I can't really put a flaw in this film since it was great fun to see. God bless America!

Done in true US Military style, 'Independence Day' is an entertaining, patriotic watch - one big dose of eye candy which can be seen again and again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing!
Review: Despite what so many people say about this film, I honestly believe that it's on of the greatest of all time. Great special veatures on the DVD. Amazing!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Beware This Triple Threat From The Aliens At Fox
Review: This latest DVD release of Independence Day marks the third time this film has been repackaged. While this practice of what I like to call "double dipping", (or is it triple dipping in this case?) is certainly not new, every studio has done this at some point. What makes this release particularly shamefull though, is the fact that, the only reason it exists is to promote another film, as it's readied for theatrical realese.

The film itself, also known as ID4, tries to be a throwback to the "disaster" films of the 70s. A huge cast of well known actors tries to overcome a major threat and be victorious in the end. Anyone familar with an alien saga known as V, will likely find many similarities between that mini series, and this film. Huge spacecrafts are in orbit around Earth and can be seen over many cities. The world wonders what these visitors have in store for us. David (Jeff Goldblum) determines that the aliens have begun counting down. He and his father (Judd Hirsch) race to Washington D.C. to tell the President (Bill Pullman). Shortly after the 2 men arrive at the White House, the aliens attack, and those that are left, decide to fight back.

Thanks to Will Smith the film is saved. The film is your typical "event" movie, many of which, do have a place in cinema history. The effects are pretty good and the film manages to entertain, despite a very contrived script, and lopsided second act. I would consider this film to be a VERY guilty pleasure of mine. As I implied earlier, Will Smith takes what he is given to do and helps to makes it work somehow. Brought to you by the team that made the awful Godzilla remake, a few years later, at least ID4 gave viewers some fun characters to root for.

The "limited edition" DVD main extras are merely lifed from the previous versions. The film viewer can select to watch either the original theatrical cut, or the special edition version, with 9 minutes of additional footage. The extended scenes don't really add much to the story, but it's still nice to have the option to choose. The two audio commentary tracks are O.K. (at best) The first, features director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, both men are fine I guess, but some of their comments are laughable---comparing ID4 to the original Star Wars-c'mon! The second track features special effects wizzards (and Oscar winners) Volker Engle and Doug Smith. This stuff gets a bit technical at times and may lose some folks. Now for really ugly stuff. The hyped and "exclusive" sneak peek at the making of Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow, amounts to nothing more than a quick 2 minute commercial for the movie. It doesn't really add much to what's already out there about the movie.

I would say that if you don't already own ID4 on DVD, you could buy this, and be satisfied. If you own the "Five Star Collection" 2 disc set, skip this altogether. There's nothing "new"...If you do buy the Limited Edition, you will find a free movie-money coupon good for admission to The Day After Tomorrow--during its first 2 weeks or so, of release...At least if it turns out to be bad, you can say you saw it for free.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't Believe the Hype about the Limited Edition!
Review: 1. The so-called "free movie-money coupon good for admission to The Day After Tomorrow" in only good for $1. Whoopdie doo!

2. The so-called "Exclusive sneak peek at the making of The Day After Tomorrow" is only 2-minutes long, and most of that is from the trailer you can download from 100 websites. In fact, the trailer shows a lot more!

If you want to buy the DVD for the movie, fine - I love ID4! But if you buy it for the Day After Tomorrow ca-rap you'll be RIPPED OFF!!!

Shame, shame, shame, 20th Century Fox. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How many versions of this have to come out?
Review: This is DVD marketing at its ugliest, worst case scenario. What is this, the third version now?

I have the two disc ultimate, or whatever it was, from last year and it's good enough despite a nasty chapter change sequence after the gang escapes the White House. The thing just freezes outright and sloppily cuts into the next chapter. There isn't any scratches on the disc, so I'm assuming that's one of the errors that this release will supposedly correct.

The movie itself gets 4 stars from me because it's shameless, B sci fi with a grade A budget. It's not meant to be logical, it's straight up fun.

Special mention has to go to an incredible score by David Arnold. This was his follow up punch to his amazing Stargate score, and he has never come close again to the heights of ID4 and Stargate music compositions. I consider him a two hit wonder, and the soundtrack to this movie sorely needs to be redone with the other 50 percent of the score restored to the CD.

Anyways, pardon that digression. If you don't own this movie already, and you like sci-fi, go ahead and get this version and don't look back. If nothing else, it's a lot more entertaining than the Star Wars prequels and it will show off your DVD player and television's capabilities.

(...)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's all fantasy, folks.
Review: I am writing this review in the face of a number of negative entries I found when looking through the reviews already posted. I found Independence Day to be a fun, visually exciting experience. A number of existing reviews picked apart the story line and made a big thing of the plot holes. SO WHAT? This was not a serious scientific presentation, but a chance to suspend belief and immerse one's self in a visual soup of big bang effects. Of course there were plot holes but did you actually think that a laptop would lay waste to an alien invasion? Windows can't even talk to MAC! How would a human written virus infect an alien system? To those who took such offense at the technical side and the plot issues.... lighten up!! By the way, almost every negative review was riddled with incorrect spelling and grammar. THAT should be negatively reviewed!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's called "fun". Look into it.
Review: Yes, the plot is ridiculous and riddled with Texas-sized holes.

Yes, the dialogue is cheesy and the characters lacking.

Yes, it's just a vehicle for pretty special effects.

And the problem is... what?

This was not supposed to be a great cinematic masterpiece. It was not supposed to be a moving epic or a heartrending drama - it set out to be an "aliens attack earth and we kill them" fast paced action-heavy plot-lite popcorn flick, and that's EXACTLY what it is.

It's mindless, it's inconsequential, it's FUN. Don't go in expecting anything more than two hours of disposable multi-million dollar special-effects-laden blockbuster trash, and you won't be disappointed.

Highly recommended.


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