Word: alienable
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Full of big-hearted, crowd-pleasing excitement, the solid, well-crafted "Independence Day" has barrelled onto the summer movie scene. The movie's real-life cast and gleeful, what-if approach toward alien invasions work wonderfully, in pleasant contrast with the string of choreographed stunts and signature one-liners that pass for action movies these days...
...film's well-executed special effects and adventure sequences show that there is nothing wrong with borrowing from other movies so long as it's done well. Viewers will have flashbacks to a wide array of adventure, sci-fi, and apocalyptic classics: "Star Wars," "Top Gun," "Alien," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and TV movie landmarks like "V," and "The Day After." Even the acronym-based ad campaign reminds one of "Terminator 2: Judgement...
...references, too, have their place, as veterans of Roswell and other alien myths will enjoy seeing. When the first signals come in, the college student on duty at SETI listens to "It's the End of the World as We Know...
...white, as July 4th draws nigh. The story, written by director Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, has a handy way of faithfully returning to the bits of exposition and information dropped along the way. The drunken pilot (Randy Quaid) whom we see being teased early on for his supposed alien encounters eventually gets his just dues...
Moviemakers don't need to conquer the aliens. They control the screen. And when they do it well, they control us, as cunningly as an ID4 alien running a mind scan on a puny Earthling. Only after the lights come up can we shake off the fear, say, "It's only a movie," and steal an anxious glance at the night...