Independence Day: Resurgence

The original Independence Day is one of those movies that every action movie fan holds in high regard. But a lot of the charm and excitement of that movie is severely lacking in this reboot, with only the crazy destruction remaining. Is that enough to make this movie great? Not when you're dealing with the legacy of the original movie.

Twenty years after the world united against the alien invasion, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) is in charge of alien research at Area 51 in Nevada. As the world is starting to prepare for the anniversary of the invasion, a spherical alien ship appears near the moon's space defence station. A decision is made by the global council to shoot it down in case of it being another invasion attempt. But it ends up not being a real threat at all and a bigger one is on its way. An alien harvester ship with a queen on it lands across the Atlantic Ocean (as in it's the size of it) and its up to a small team of pilots led by Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth) and Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher).

This movie really doesn't offer much past the action. There is no real tension or high stakes. Yes there is a countdown that the good guys have to go up against to win, but there's no underdog story that was present in the original. Where the humans were going against the aliens with our old technology, in Resurgence, they are fighting with alien technology. So there's no real tension in two equally matched enemies fighting one another with no exciting underdog story to speak of. There is the introduction of the alien queen, but she is so similar to the queen from Aliens, it's unbelievable. At least she's a different colour.

What's really disappointing is that none of the characters stick out in a distinct way. In the original, you had the diverse personalities of Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid and Jeff Goldblum. While both Goldblum and Pullman both return, they are a shadow of their former selves. Even Goldblum, who is known for his eccentric performances, actually gives the first normal performance of his life. None of the new actors offer anything special either. Liam Hemsworth is normally good in an action flick, but it feels like he's relegated to the background. Jessie T. Usher, playing Will Smith's son is equally boring. Travis Tope plays Liam's pilot partner and I was just waiting for him to be killed off, which he isn't. As for the leading ladies of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Maika Monroe, they're both fantastic performers and don't belong in this movie. As for Nicolas Wright (or American John Oliver, you'll know what I'm talking about), his character just baffled me.

All told, Resurgence occupies a weird limbo in the exact centre of the triangle made up of action, sci-fi and 20th anniversary reboot. It's not good enough for everyone to go crazy about, but it's not terrible enough to hate. It just is.

It Follows

"It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you."

*Spoiler brackets*

Jay (Maika Monroe) is a quiet suburban girl whose recently began dating a mysterious guy (Jake Weary). During one of their dates the couple has sex in the back of his car near an abandoned building and afterwards Jay is knocked unconscious by her date. She wakes up bound to a wheelchair in the building where the man begins to describe the curse he's passed onto her. A creature will now follow her wherever she is, but it can only walk. When it reaches her, she'll die and when she dies it continues after the person who first passed on the curse.

There's a recent trend in independent horror film of the last few years to homage and reinvent late 70's and early 80's horror styles. Through direction, cinematography, premise, production design and especially soundtrack, films such as House of the Devil, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Stage Fright and Maniac among others stand independent from the tired trends of blue-filtered, rebooted, CGI-laden, jump-scare slashers that dominate modern horror. David Robert Mitchell's It Follows has the simplest of premises; through sex someone can transfer a curse to you that manifests as a creature that appears as human that is relentlessly following you and when it touches you, you die. It borrows one of Halloween's most iconic shots, while simultaneously Disasterpiece's musical style is influenced great by John Carpenter as well, and Mitchell has claimed that Carpenter and George A. Romero significantly influenced his film.

Visually, It Follows is a gorgeous example of independent film-making.The most suspenseful scenes are composed with undeniable care, with many shots lingering to zoom, pan or maintain dread. The film also employs numerous wide, symmetrical slow-paced shots and often uses space and movement in beautiful, terrifying ways. This film absolutely excels in otherwise dulls scenes as even discussing what Jay and her friends next plan is becomes thrilling as through premise and composition It is always likely to appear. As said earlier, the film has a distinct 70's style and this also manifests in the behaviours of Jay and her group who, despite the incongruity with modern teenagers, are often found watching 50's B-horror films or simply sitting on their porch.

It Follows is a film that grates as it goes on, as the soundtrack at times clashes violently with the scenes it plays over, character logic is child-like, the performances are full of blank stares and mumbled dialogue, the film suffers from an overload of under-cooked characters and soon falls into a dull repitition (arrive at an area, prepare for It to arrive, freak out when it arrives, run away, sit down and pull knees to chest and wait). The mumbled performances do little to hide the inadequacies of the script, as both dialogue and characters fall flat and serve little purpose. The strength of the film is in the situation and having four or five people following Jay around, and only one or two serve any real purpose to the plot.

*The reveal of the creature itself and its killing method is laughable, simply laughable. Most often when it appears, the creature appears as a vulnerable woman in some manner (a naked woman, old woman in a hospital gown, victimised woman beaten, stripped and urinating on herself) or as a white shirt wearing thin man with blackened panda-like eyes, and it is finally two-thirds through the film that the creature murders someone by literally raping their life out of them and this is shown through It impersonating one characters mother and killing him. In these moments, the fear created from the excellent tension that each scene creates instantly dissolves into fits of giggles and guffaws.*

It Follows is a film that does horror well, but is let down by flat characters, repetitive situations and disappointing performance. Gorgeously shot, with many well-paced scenes and a truly terrifying premise, It Follows will scare the life out of you, and yet bore you by the end.