Movie Review – Independence Day (1996)

Imagine one morning you were to awaken and discover an alien spaceship the size of a city hovering over your home town?

What would you do when discovering that the aliens are hostile and intend on wiping out the human race?

In honor of the Fourth of July, today we’re taking a look at the 1996 alien invasion, summertime, blockbuster film, Independence Day.  Directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day tells of a story about a race of aliens who attack and intend on destroying the Earth’s population.  Humanity fights back, but the people discover that it’s going to take more than ordinary weapons to defeat these aliens.

Independence Day stars Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson, Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller, and Bill Pullman as President Thomas Whitmore.  Supporting them in the movie are a variety of actors and actresses including Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, James Rebhorn, Adam Baldwin and Brent Spiner.

Independence Day begins early in the morning on July 2nd as a massive alien mothership passes by the Earth’s Moon.  The astronomers at SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) receive the transmissions and alert the U.S. government.  Marine Corps General William Gray (Robert Loggia) receives the news and passes it along to the Secretary of Defense.

Later that morning, U.S. President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is just starting his day at the White House with White House Communications Director Constance Spano (Margaret Colin) when he receives a phone call and learns about the alien spaceships.  By this point several dozen smaller alien “destroyer” spaceships (each destroyer being about 15 miles wide) have detached from the mothership and begun to enter the Earth’s atmosphere.  Whitmore’s young daughter, Patricia (Mae Whitman), is there with him in the White House, but First Lady Marilyn Whitemore (Mary McDonnell) has been campaigning for him across the country in Los Angeles.

In New York City, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is a graduate from MIT and working for a cable company.  He’s also divorced from his wife and he spends time with his father, Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch).  When David arrives at work, his boss, Marty Gilbert (Harvey Fierstein), is panicking because there’s a problem with their satellite system, and the picture quality is distorted.  He also tells David that one of their satellites in Earth orbit is missing.

Out in Imperial Valley, California, Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) is a widowed, alcoholic crop duster pilot who served in the military during the Vietnam War.  Russell also claims to have been kidnapped an experimented on by aliens, and his extraterrestrial stories have convinced many in the town that he’s crazy.  He lives in an R/V and also looks after the three children from his marriage, though they don’t have any respect for him either.

Around the world the alien destroyers enter the Earth’s atmosphere and head towards major cities.  Soon there are sightings of the destroyers and people begin to panic.  Three of the destroyers arrive in the U.S. and each one hovers over New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California.

In Los Angeles, Marine Corps aviator Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is just waking up as the alien destroyer arrives in his city.  He’s living with his girlfriend Jasmine Dubrow (Vivicia A. Fox), a single mother and stripper, and her young son Dylan (Ross Bagley).  Thinking that the house shaking was from a small earthquake, neither Steven or Jasmine realize there’s a massive alien destroyer spaceship until they step outside and see it hovering over downtown L.A.

Back in New York, David has analyzed the cable company’s satellite system and discovered a hidden code that was messing with their transmissions and causing the distorted pictures.  When he converts the code into a binary system and further analyzes it, David discovers that the code itself is basically a countdown code.  In a matter of hours it’s going to stop transmitting, and their satellite feed will be back to normal.

Marty tells David about the alien spaceships, and David realizes that the hidden code is the alien’s code.  He sees a map of the destroyers heading towards the major cities around the world and determines that they’re going to attack at the end of the countdown.  While his co-workers head to an old bomb shelter in the basement of their building, David warns Marty to get out of town while he still can.  David then calls his ex-wife, Constance Spano, at the White House, but she’s not willing to listen to him or his wild ideas.

Knowing that Constance is in danger, and that the president needs to know this information, David has his father drive the two of them to the White House in Washington, D.C.  As they’re driving into the city, everybody else is trying to flee from the aliens.

In Los Angeles, Steven Hiller heads back to the Marine Corps base at El Toro.  Jasmine doesn’t want him to leave her alone, but he convinces her that the aliens probably didn’t travel all this way just to pick a fight.  He then tells her that he’ll find a way to get her and Dylan to live with him on the military base.

Russell Casse is arrested when he tries to drop leaflets and warn the people about the true intentions of the aliens, but he’s later released by the police.  Apparently the police have bigger problems to deal with rather than a crazy man.  He finds his step-children and flees the area with other campers and R/V drivers.

When Jasmine goes to work at her strip club, she notices that the customers are paying more attention to the news stories than to her on stage.  Her friend Tiffany (Kiersten Warren), a fellow stripper, wants to go party downtown with the alien destroyer.  Jasmine tries to convince her not to do that, but Tiffany does so anyway.  Jasmine then quits her job and leaves the strip club.

Across the country, David and Julius reach the perimeter fence of the White House.  He uses a computerized phone directory to locate his ex-wife’s emergency number, and he convinces her to look out the window.  When Constance sees them outside, she allows them to enter the building.  David then talks to President Whitmore and demonstrates how the aliens are using the satellites in orbit to communicate, causing the interference in the satellite system.  He then shows him the alien’s code and how it’s counting down.  Combine that with the fact that the alien destroyers have positioned themselves over major cities, and President Whitmore is convinced that it’s going to be an attack.  He orders the immediate evacuation of all major cities, and he and his staff flee the White House.

When the countdown timer strikes zero, the alien destroyers open and unveil their superweapon.  The weapons fire simultaneously all around the world, unleashing a tremendous shock wave that destroys everything in its path.  New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. are all wiped out within a matter of moments.  President Whitmore is able to escape the blast on board Air Force One, but it’s a close call.  With him are his top advisors along with Constance, David and Julius.  In Los Angeles, Jasmine and Dylan survive the blast by hiding in a secure room in an underground tunnel.

The next day is July 3rd.  Major cities around the world have just been destroyed, and the president feels guilty for not having evacuated the cities earlier.  He believes that thousands of innocent lives could have been saved if he acted sooner.

El Toro has been spared from the alien attack (for now), and the Marine Corps pilots are being briefed on their counter-attack.  Steven Hiller and his wingmate Jimmy Wilder (Harry Connick, Jr.) are arrogant and ready to take the fight to the aliens.  Their squadron of F/A-18 Hornets flies to the destroyer, but when they fire their air-to-air missiles, they discover that a force shield protects the destroyer.  To make matters worse, out of the destroyer fly hundreds of smaller alien “attacker” ships.  These are fighters armed with plasma rifles and also protected by force fields.

Most of the Marine Corps aircraft are destroyed by the attackers, and Steven and Jimmy try to make a getaway.  Jimmy tries to break away while flying at top speed, and he cannot handle the high G-force.  One of the alien attackers easily destroys Jimmy’s aircraft, killing him in the explosion.  Steven then lures the other pursuing alien into a canyon, and the two of them fly at high-speed through the canyon and dodge the walls and obstacles.  At the end of the canyon, Steven released his drag parachute and then ejects before his aircraft crashes.  The parachute covers the alien’s spaceship and he crashes into the ground.  After Steven safely lands in his parachute, he walks to the alien’s crashed spaceship, opens it, and then punches and knocks out the alien creature.  “Welcome to Earth!”

While Steven Hiller was leading the alien into the canyon, the rest of the attackers destroyed the El Toro military base.

On board Air Force One, there’s a discussion about whether or not anything could have been done to prevent the alien attack.  Julius Levinson accuses the president of knowing about the aliens yet doing nothing about them, citing the alleged alien crash landing in Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947 as evidence.  President Whitmore tries to assure Julius that it didn’t really happen, Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki (James Rebhorn) informs the president that there really was a crash landing and the aliens’ bodies and spaceship were being kept at a secret military installation known as Area 51.

Steven Hiller is dragging the unconscious alien across the desert in his parachute when he encounters Russell Casse and a bunch of other survivors in their R/Vs and camper trailers.  They give him a ride to Area 51, which happens to be nearby.

After landing at Area 51, the president and his companions are greeted by Air Force Major Mitchell (Adam Baldwin), and he takes them underground to one of the laboratories.  There they meet with Dr. Brackish Okun (Brent Spiner), and he shows them the crashed alien spacecraft along with the three dead alien bodies.  It turns out that the aliens themselves are similar to human beings.  One of the main differences is that the aliens have no vocal cords, and it’s presumed that they communicate by ESP or telepathy.

As the group is examining the aliens and the recovered spaceship, there’s news that Captain Steven Hiller has arrived at the base with an unconscious alien.  Dr. Okun rushes the alien into a lab and they proceed to open the alien’s exoskeleton so they can examine the live alien.  The alien suddenly wakes and wrecks havoc in the room, killing the scientists and taking Dr. Okun hostage.

President Whitmore goes to an observation area along with Major Mitchell, General Gray and Albert Nimzikci.  The alien uses Dr. Okun’s body to communicate with the president.  When Whitmore asks if there can be a truce and peace between them, the alien reponds that there cannot be any peace.  The human beings are meant to die.  The alien then tries to attack President Whitmore by using telepathy, but Mitchell and his security team fire their pistols at the alien, killing it.  During the telepathic attack Whitmore’s mind was linked to the alien’s, and he was able to read the alien’s thoughts and learn their plans.  It turns out that the aliens are basically parasites and they hop from planet to planet, wiping out the population and then using all of the natural resources.  Knowing this, he finally authorizes a nuclear attack against the destroyers, something that Nimzikci has been pushing all day.

Meanwhile, Steven Hiller learns that El Toro has been destroyed.  Knowing that Jasmine is still out in Los Angeles, he steals a helicopter and flies there to find her.  He later lands and reunites with Jasmine and Dylan.  It turns out that Jasmine has been trying to rescue survivors and injured people, one of the injured people being First Lady Marilyn Whitmore.  He quickly flies all of them back to Area 51 on board his helicopter.

Houston, Texas is the next city about to be attacked by one of the destroyers.  Flying towards the destroyer is a squadron of B-2 Spirit bombers carrying nuclear weapons.  President Whitmore authorizes the nuclear attack, and one of the B-2s launches a nuclear missile at the destroyer.  The weapon detonates, but the destroyer is untouched.  Not even the tremendous firepower of a nuclear weapon can stop the alien destroyers.

After the failed nuclear attack, Steven Hiller lands at Area 51 with his passengers.  First Lady Marilyn Whitmore is rushed into the facility’s medical center.  When President Whitmore arrives, one of the doctors warns him that his wife is suffering from severe internal bleeding from her injuries.  There’s nothing that they can do to save her.  Marilyn dies soon after reuniting with her daughter and husband.

Down in the laboratory, David Levinson is upset that the president used a nuclear weapon, and he’s been getting drunk because of it.  Julius finds his son and gives him a small pep talk.  When he mentions something about David possibly catching a cold, this gives David an idea.  He quickly gets back to work on the alien spaceship and then calls everybody into the laboratory so that he can share his discovery.

It turns out that David found a way through the alien’s force field.  He was able to learn the alien’s code earlier when he converted it into a binary form.  Now he has written a computer virus that disabled the alien spaceship’s force field.  He demonstrates this by having Major Mitchell try to shoot an empty can of Coke off the spaceship.  The first shot fails because the ship is protected by the force field, but the second shot is a success after the force field is temporarily disable because of David’s virus program.

Now comes the crazy part.

David’s grand plan is to fly the recovered alien spaceship up to the mothership in Earth orbit.  Once the spaceship docks, he’ll upload his virus into the mothership, and count on the virus then spreading to all of the destroyers and attackers back on Earth.  That should buy the military some time to mount a counter-attack, this time attacking while the aliens’ shields are disabled.  General Gray and President Whitmore are sold on the plan, and they quickly spread the word to other militaries around the world.

One of the problems now is finding pilots to help fight in the counter-attack.  Most of the military pilots were killed in the previous attack.  Word spreads about the pilot shortage, and Russell Casse volunteers to fly and fight.  He finally quits drinking and gets serious.

Steven Hiller volunteers to fly the recovered alien spaceship into space, and David will be going with him to upload the computer program.  Before they leave, there’s a small marriage ceremony where Steven marries Jasmine.  David and Constance are their witnesses.  While they’re watching the ceremony, David and Constance realize that they still love each other.

In the pre-dawn hours of July 4th, Steven and David fly away in the recovered alien spaceship.  Just after they leave, President Whitmore rallies his new airmen by giving them a motivational speech about fighting for a new type of independence.  Whitmore then changes into a flight suit and climbs into one of the F/A-18 Hornets himself to lead the attack.  President Whitmore reminds General Gray that before he was president he was a fighter pilot in the Gulf War, and he belongs in the sky.

In space, the alien spaceship is on an autopilot mode as it approaches and flies into the vast alien mothership.  Before they dock, Steven and David see that the aliens are preparing for a ground invasion and final blow to the human beings on Earth.  The spaceship docks and David easily uploads his computer virus into the mothership’s computer and communication system.

On Earth, President Whitmore leads his squadron of F/A-18 Hornets into an aerial battle with the aliens.  This time their air-to-air missiles strike the destroyer and begin to cause damage, but not enough of it.  When the attackers fly out and fight back, this time the human’s weapons are effective because the attackers do not have any shields either.  It’s a race against time to disable the destroyer’s primary weapon before it destroys the base at Area 51.

All of the pilots run out of missiles.  Russell Casse suddenly arrives in his Hornet and he has a missile, but there’s a malfunction and it’s unable to launch.  With only moments to go before the superweapon fires, Russell sacrifices himself by flying his jet into the superweapon, causing it to detonate there in the destroyer.  Russell is killed and the alien destroyer is finally destroyed.  It crashes to the ground in a tremendous explosion.  Word is quickly spread to the other countries and there’s footage of other destroyers being destroyed.

In space, Steven and David fire their tactical nuclear missile into the control center of the mothership.  This detaches them from the dock, and Steven takes the controls and makes a quick getaway.  They race out of the mothership while being pursued by several attackers and before the nuclear missile detonates.  They barely make it outside of the mothership before the nuclear missile detonates, destroying the entire spaceship.  Their spaceship barely survives the nuclear shockwave and re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.

Independence Day ends with Steven and David walking away from their crashed spaceship and reuniting with Jasmine and Constance.  President Whitmore is there to congratulate them, and Steven and Dylan watch as the remaining pieces of the alien mothership burn in the Earth’s atmosphere, thinking of those burning pieces as fireworks.

So is Independence Day a good movie?

Independence Day is a classic example of a summertime popcorn flick.  The actors are decent, the action scenes are fun although unrealistic, and the story involving the massive alien spaceships that suddenly appear over major cities is quite fascinating.

Of course, with a film like this, it’s necessary to shut off your brain to enjoy it best.  You’ll get squeamish when sitting through the clichés and plot holes.  Some elements are extremely simplistic, while others (such as David being able to translate the alien’s code and to reprogram it) are just plain stupid.  It’s also fairly lame seeing only F/A-18 Hornets fighting against the aliens when the military has a much wider variety of fighter aircraft.

Despite its problems, Independence Day was a huge hit in the theaters.  People loved the original story along with the action scenes and the humor throughout the film.  Will Smith’s character punching out (and later kicking several times) the alien was hilarious.

Those people who love disaster films will enjoy the way that major cities are easily destroyed by the alien destroyers.  Their superweapon is pretty cool when it destroys skyscrapers and then annihilates the entire city.  There are also two nuclear detonations in the movie, though we really don’t see much damage from those weapons.  But it’s the thought that counts.

Fans of sci-fi films will enjoy the overall storyline about the alien invaders.  These are not peaceful creatures from another world.  These are killers who will destroy everything in their path.  There is no negotiating for peace.  There is no truce.  These creatures simply want to kill us all so that they can have the Earth’s natural resources for themselves.  The destroyer spaceships are pretty slick, and their advanced superweapon is pretty neat as well.

Lastly, fans of simple films will enjoy Independence Day as well.  This is not a film with a twist ending, or something that you have to see several times to figure out everything.  This movie is fairly predictable, it’s simple, and it has a lot of action and quick but memorable dialogue as well.  Watch the film once and you’ll probably be repeating some of its lines to your friends after its finished.

Independence Day (1996) – movie trailer

Independence Day is a simple but entertaining film.  Don’t expect anything high quality or realistic, otherwise you’ll be disappointed.  This is a big-budget summertime film meant to entertain people, not to scare them or deliver some sort of political message.  Grab your friends, turn down the lights, shut off the phone, and enjoy a major action film from the mid 1990s.  As cheesy as the movie may be, this is a classic sci-fi/action film that deserves its rightful place in Hollywood’s history.

Video Newscaster – [TV news anchor reporting] “Once again, the L.A.P.D. is asking Los Angelenos not to fire their guns at the visitor spacecraft. You may inadvertently trigger an interstellar war.”

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Captain Steven Hiller – [after he punches out an alien] “Welcome to Earth!”

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President Thomas Whitmore – [while visiting Area 51] “I don’t understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?”
Julius Levinson – “You don’t actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?”

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Gen. Gray – “Are you all right?”
President Thomas Whitmore – “I saw… its thoughts. I saw what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet… their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on… and we’re next. Nuke ’em. Let’s nuke the bastards.”

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David Levinson – “You really think you can fly that thing?”
Captain Steven Hiller – “You really think you can do all that bullshit you just said?”

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President Thomas Whitmore – [addressing his pilots before the final battle] “Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. “Mankind.” That word should have 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 Fourth of July, and you will 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 Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day 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 celebrate our Independence Day!”

David Levinson – [trying to escape with Steven Hiller out of the alien’s mothership] “Must go faster. Must go faster! Must go faster!”