Our planet tis of thee...

As much as I’ve always said the primary goal of this blog is to amuse myself, I do have to admit that at least 47% of the fun is tracking reader stats. I think I probably spend as much time per week with my head buried in the analytics as I do actually writing. That may seem alien and weird to you, but I have a vaguely unhealthy love of spreadsheets so of course I have my own sheet for tracking Anger In A Man Suit views (why wouldn’t I? It has graphs and everything). I’m constantly surprised by the reach some of these posts get; mainland Europe, South East Asia, Australasia and even the Good Ol’ USA. I only know a couple of people in the States and I’m not convinced they’d necessarily be reading this and certainly not 374 times over. I’m also fairly sure that the one view I got from Chechnya probably landed the guy/girl in Gulag for sedition or something, so apologies for that. My bad.

The US connection is important, because this week they celebrate Independence Day. Yes, that beautiful day of the year where they remember driving out the oppressive British occupiers by launching a vast array of explosives into the air, dumping all tea in the country into the ocean, dressing exclusively in clothing made from the Stars and Stripes and making countless jokes about our crooked teeth and bland food. I assume they hold some sort of festival where all British people are rounded up into the town square and bludgeoned with sticks carved ornately with the word Freedom. This is not to be confused with Thanksgiving of course, where the entire nation celebrates stealing a continent from its indigenous people by eating their bodyweight in turkey and pumpkin pie, which are arguably two of the blandest foods I can think of. Irony is a cruel mistress.

Now while I obviously don’t celebrate the 4^th of July being British (although in possession of a decent and straight set of teeth thanks very much) I will use it as a gratuitous, obvious and blunt segue into this week’s shenanigans, namely commiserating my decision to watch Independence Day Resurgence. Neat.

Panic not folks, I’m not a complete monster. Even I wouldn’t start in on the original but I will say this though; in the heady two decades since ID4 a lot has changed. We’re 20 years older and more cynical for one so what used to be spectacle on a grand scale is now obviously a miniature with a few firecrackers rammed into the windows. Although I will say that the dog out-running the blast wave in the tunnel is probably still one of the dumbest things ever committed to 35mm film; clearly levelling entire cities and their associated populi was fine with the director, but offing one dog would just be barbaric. One of the other major things to change since 1996 is clearly the availability of Will Smith.

Imagine you’ve had this great idea about the sequel to one of the more popular Sci-Fi action movies of recent times. You’ve slaved over the details, your plot is airtight and you’ve already mentally spent the inevitable royalties paying off your crippling debts and finally splashing out on that medication your doctor seemed to think was fairly important. Then all of a sudden Will Smith decides he’s far too busy and important to rehash one of the films that brought him household recognition and you’re back to square one trying to make a buddy movie work with only one of the buddies. Now obviously I’m just making wild suppositions here, but that’s my whole shtick so I feel like I’m pretty justified in saying that’s why this sequel is basically ID4: The Kids. Bill Pullman and his daughter are back (she isn’t the same actress though which is disappointing) and Vivica Fox and her son are here to look all sorrowful about them writing Will Smith out by having him crash an experimental plane (it’s what he would have wanted). It makes sense, but everybody knows why it happened. It’s the beginning of a series of odd déjà vus and appropriations from other movies; it sort feels like Starship Troopers for a bit with all these kids running around in jumpsuits, then it borrows liberally from the Alien franchise with its Queen concept, there’s a bunch of Top Gun style male-bonding in the middle, where it might be unspoken but they can be each other’s wing man any time and that is in no way what-so-ever any sort of homo-erotic euphemism. No sir. Let’s face it though, if you head into a movie sequel 20 years later expecting something original then you have bigger problems than I can fix. Jeff Goldblum is back though, mumbling his way through his contractual obligations like the true professional he is, but it really feels like there are motions being gone through at basically every turn.

It’s kind of a shame really, but Resurgence is kind of a microcosm of everything that I bitch and moan about on a weekly basis. It’s exactly the same plot, aliens show up to kill everyone, America gets all Super Probotector and attacks aggressively. Except PLOT TWIST it’s not a bad guy and Marvin the Martian’s head appears to be some sort of intergalactic rebel leader. Don’t worry, we soon get our familiar foes except Trump’s America is in full effect here because bigger is clearly better and before you know it there’s massive Alien Queen stomping around after a school bus full of cute refugee kids waiting for the foreshadowing from Act I to kick in (which in this case is a random African Warlord who turns out to not be a fascist murder-bastard. Way to break traditional stereotypes bro, proud of ya!). Data from Star Trek wakes up from his coma in a bad wig to reverse the polarities on something, get his mate shot and have the odd alien migraine. It’s all vaguely familiar, because that’s exactly why you’d go to watch it, but not familiar enough. Someone does try to punch out and alien exo-skeleton though, so fair play. Oh and it’s nice to see that literally everybody still seems to be able to fly a plane. Something’s never change.

The most disconcerting part of proceedings is that for all the advancements in cinematic technology, they seem to be using a worse green screen stage than back in the day. There’s a scene at a bus stop. A very ordinary bus stop and a very ordinary car and an entirely unforgettable conversation which I’m sure was integral to the plot somehow. I’ll be good God damned if they haven’t green screened the lot. I can understand all the space stuff, the interiors of Motherships, weird and un-filmable locations, but a leafy suburban street? The interior of a car? I fail to believe that there wasn’t something suitable in the immediate vicinity. It’s technology for technology’s sake; a brand new shiny CGI suit for an old and well used narrative. Even the rousing speeches fail to rouse, although they are less cringe-worthy than Idris Elba’s cancelling the apocalypse BS from Pacific Rim.

So happy 4^th of July America. Thanks for always being there to save us from terrorists, aliens, drugs cartels, bugs and whatever else crawls out of the woodwork. Just maybe use practical effects next time huh?