Written by Evan Purcell, June 21, 2016, at 5:35 a.m.
Every Tuesday, we’ll take a look at another mockbuster from the company that brought you Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers, and Alien vs. Hunter. This week, we’re going bipartisan with Independents’ Day.
Independents’ Day Mockbuster
First of all, this is the absolute worst title of any movie I’ve reviewed for this column. It’s a sound-alike riff on the upcoming Independence Day sequel, but it means nothing. The movie does not take place on the Fourth of July (or if it does, no one acknowledges the fact), and even if it did, there would be no reason why the title is spelled like that (aside from copyright infringement reasons, of course). It’s almost glorious in its meaninglessness. (The apostrophe is in the right place, though. So… great?)
Pushing that aside, however, Independents’ Day is a sci-fi cheapie with some really interesting ideas (and a lot of weirdness) at its core. Basically, alien invaders come to Earth and blow up all the national capitals. Then they make an announcement which boils down to: “Hey, guys. You fight all the time, so we don’t trust you. Now that all your governments are crippled, we trust you enough to hang out with us. Why don’t you visit our spaceships?”
We’ve seen this premise before, most notably in the iconic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man.” (Spoiler alert: They don’t want to help us! It’s a cookbook!) Anyway, we’re not idiots. We know that these aliens aren’t trustworthy, no matter how many handicapped children they miraculously fix. (For the record: just one. You would think that the superior alien race would want to heal at least a dozen, just to be safe.)
While we’ve seen this before, I like the movie’s unique perspective: these aliens basically destroy all the governments of Earth, and they shrug it off as a totally justified safety precaution. Then they ask people to trust them, and against all logic, people do. Pretty much everybody wants to board these healing spaceships. The only problem comes from a three-person terror group from (you guessed it) America.
That’s right. Americans are the only people in the entire world who even consider fighting back against these suspicious aliens. Aside from a few lines of dialogue, we don’t anything about the other 200-plus countries around the globe, but from all reports, everyone seems fine with these peaceful, politician-killing invaders. I would love to see a spinoff movie from the point of view of, say, North Koreans. Aliens blow up their government and then… what happens next? Who knows? It’s a fascinating thought, and would make for a crazy movie.
But I love how blindly American this movie is. In the reality of this movie, no other countries have any importance at all. They’re all going through the same invasion horrors as the States, and yet no one seems to mind. America is all alone in this ridiculously one-sided battle. (Perhaps that’s where the awful title comes from: We’re “independent” from the rest of the world. Hmm… Nope. Title still sucks.)
Our main POV character is the female vice-president who suddenly becomes president when the White House blows up. Physically, she’s supposed to remind you of Sarah Palin, but thankfully the movie isn’t interested in making any sort of political statement. Mockbusters can do a lot of things (blow stuff up, showcase forgotten stars, make endearingly nonsensical stories out of bad Will Smith movies), but political commentary is absolutely not in their wheelhouse.
Madame President defeats the aliens (of course she does) by injecting one of them with a syringe full of… something. Apparently, all the aliens are connected, Borg-style, and they all die off. Yay America. For those who’ve read my other Mockbusters articles, this plot twist should remind you of a previous essay in the series: War of the Worlds 2. The only difference is that this movie’s aliens don’t rely on a giant, glowing brain. Perhaps they’re operating without a brain at all. That would explain how easily defeated they are.
Before we get to the obligatory rah-rah ending, there’s a nice subplot where the First Husband is in league with some alien-bombing terrorists. Because of his actions, the aliens get angrier and hundreds of people die. Perhaps my favorite scene in the movie is when the President walks in on his phone conversation. She raises her eyebrow, explains that she’s upset, and then everybody goes about their business. It’s the strangest under-reaction I’ve ever seen in a movie about aliens taking over the world.
And that is Independents’ Day in a nutshell. Typical sci-fi movie stuff happens, but the characters and their reactions are just a little bit… off. Aliens blow up the government and people instantly trust them. A husband betrays his wife and causes mass death, and she’s like, “Well, boys will be boys.” These are human characters, but they feel like aliens themselves. Perhaps that’s why I had so much fun watching this movie. It’s off-brand, even for a cash-in mockbuster.
When the real Independence Day sequel comes out in a week, all sources say it’s going to be a big, ol’ stink bomb. Most of the original actors didn’t return. The actors who did return are doing virtually no publicity for the movie. And the original, while popular for its time, is now dated in all the wrong ways. This movie costs hundreds of millions of dollars to make, and it has virtually no buzz for a movie that’s supposed to come out in a matter of days.
Will it be better than this bizarre film? Maybe. It has eleven credited screenwriters, so it’ll probably be as confusing. The effects will presumably be better (though this movie’s alien effects were actually passable). Worst case scenario: the new Independence Day will be bland and forgettable. Best case scenario: it’ll be a train wreck, but a fun one. Let’s cross our fingers for the latter. And in the meantime, there are worse ways to spend a lazy Sunday than watching this movie on your laptop. It might not be great, but hey, at least they correctly used that apostrophe.
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Evan Purcell is the headmaster of a tiny private school in Zanzibar. In addition to writing mildly condescending reviews of bad films, he also writes everything from romance novels to horror stories. Check out his blog and Amazon author page. And in the meantime, go out and vote!