Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Maika Monroe
Year: 2016
Last summer, I prepped for the sequel by revisiting the original and basking in its 90s glory. It’s an iconic film, something that defined a season, and is equal parts silly & fun. I expected the second to be the same, even if it was a bit of an obvious ploy to make money off a generation’s childhood. That I can deal with, it happens, and as long as the movie takes me back to the good ol’ days, I’m happy. As it turns out, I didn’t watch Resurgence in the theatre, never found a chance to check it out, and so am only now reviewing it, long after it became an official bomb. I don’t think the negative press had any effect on me though, I was willing to judge it on merit alone, and I would have given it praise had it deserved it. News flash: it does not.
Two decades after humanity defeated the alien threat, they have returned for revenge. Earth has prospered in the interim, uniting as one species, using the alien technology to better ourselves. On the military side, we have also used the time to prepare defenses, to improve our strength, to create a Moon base, and to wait in ready. But we had no idea just how bad it would be. A mother ship that stretches the length of the Atlantic ocean has landed on our planet, and our best heroes will have to battle the threat a second time, if we are to survive. President Whitmore, David Levinson, Captain Hiller’s son; they all return to face the aliens, and they won’t give up until our resolve beats their evil.
This really is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It’s Sharknado bad, but with the technology and the backstory to fool audiences into thinking that it might be something better. It isn’t, it’s complete filth, you can smell it a mile away. Every line and every interaction seemed written to land flat, every action sequence meant to muddle your mind, every character an idiotic stereotype that we’ve seen a hundred times before. Emmerich must have been out of his mind if he thought for a second that this movie was on par with the mediocre but tubular films he’s given us before. Those were entertaining, even if we knew they weren’t that great; this was pure evil. Hemsworth was dreadful, Goldblum attempted a ridiculous love story, Monroe was miscast, and literally every other actor in the movie sucked. I felt insulted watching this, knowing that no one cared enough about the fans to create something even passably good, that they could expect us to swallow this shit.
My rating: ☆