Independence Day: Second Coming - Blu-ray

Movie: It has been 20 years since the aliens attacked our Earth and nearly wiped out humanity. But the invasion was successfully repelled. The survivors have rebuilt cities, buried old conflicts, and formed an international alliance to use alien technology to protect themselves from future attacks. But the aliens have also had two decades to prepare revenge for their defeat. And so they return with an even bigger mothership and more deadly weapons to destroy humanity once and for all. Scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), who was instrumental in saving Earth during the first alien invasion, must now once again team up with a group of intrepid fighters to defeat the interstellar enemy. But this time, the seems to hold all the cards.

There were always rumors that Roland Emmerich would follow up his 1996 blockbuster. But it's only twenty years after the first alien invasion that the Master of Disaster is really letting rip again. With Independence Day: Return, he's trying to satisfy all the fans of the original while appealing to a whole new generation of moviegoers. Did he succeed? The answer to that is a resounding: no! To that end, it must first be made clear that Independence Day was not really a good movie. It was perfect popcorn entertainment with a high fun factor, no question. The movie had some pictures to offer, which were really spectacular for its time. But you can't really call the flick good by any stretch of the imagination. And that's coming from someone who watched the film several times in the theater, bought the VHS and later still the DVD. I loved the first film for what it was: entertaining fodder for the eye, with the brain functions down to the bare minimum. And that's exactly why I didn't expect the sequel to be a genre milestone. Rather, I assumed that we'd be treated to a more technically impressive spectacle with a similarly high fun factor as the first film. And by and large, Emmerich certainly delivers.

This isn't really dramaturgically logical and certainly not well written. The dialogues are sometimes really grotty and the characters are drawn absolutely clichéd. You have to be able to get involved with that to have fun with this renewed alien attack. But even then there are some unmistakable points of criticism, which prevent that here once again the wow effect is achieved, with which part 1 has lured twenty years ago over 9 million visitors in the German cinemas. The film lacks such fascinating images as those of spaceships entering the Earth's atmosphere and then hovering over the major cities of this world. These are images that, despite outdated effects, still work twenty years later. In his effort to make everything bigger, faster, and more spectacular in Round 2, Emmerich failed to create similarly memorable images. The aliens' arrival and the first major attack consist of rather interchangeable CGI sequences that could have come from a Transformers movie or similar effects overkill.

If all the effects could be convincing, that might not be such a bad thing. But in some sequences, the green screen effects are so obvious that you wonder if the makers ran out of money here. And it's moments like these that also reveal what kind of nonsense was actually pulled off here. It's still fun, but it also makes for some moments of extreme eye-rolling that better effects might have prevented.

About the actors hardly anything needs to be said, because they have little room to develop. The script just isn't good enough for that. While many just seem to keep their eyes and mouths open and look skyward at the direction, veterans like Jeff Goldblum or Bill Pullman just drive on autopilot. But again, anyone who was expecting great acting cinema unfortunately has only themselves to blame after their experiences in Part 1! Also, all those who are upset that the USA is once again celebrated as the savior of the world should just take a deep breath, then think about what kind of movie they just saw and then just accept it for what it is: harmless, entertaining popcorn entertainment. The only real shame is that the sequel lacks that special something that made the first installment something of a classic. The movie is nice to look at and sometimes (not always intended) very funny, but nothing more - and for that you get a decent: worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: This was actually not to be expected otherwise for a current blockbuster: the picture is absolutely clean and the colors very atmospherically mixed. The image sharpness is also a very high level and allows especially in the alien attacks even the smallest details very well come into their own. In addition, the 2D version of the film also has a pleasant image depth, which comes into play especially well in the destruction sequences. The powerful and very lively sound mix can also convince all along the line. Numerous sound effects ensure that the surround channels are in use almost throughout. All in all, there is a deserved here: very good!

Extras: The bonus material starts with an audio commentary, which once again proves that Roland Emmerich's strengths do not necessarily lie in narrating these comments. In many sequences Emmerich merely describes what you are about to see and really interesting info about the making of the film is unfortunately scarce. This is more likely to be found in the decent Making of (approx. 55:25 min.), which, however, also goes into a bit too much detail about the content, which wouldn't really have been necessary after watching the film. The Blu-ray also has a (fictional) TV featurette about the war from 1996 (approx. 5:11 mins) and an equally fictional featurette from breakfast TV (approx. 3:07 mins) on board. Eight dropped scenes (approx. 8:24 min.), which can be viewed with optional audio commentary, a couple of outtakes (approx. 6:14 min.) and design concepts round out the disc's additional offerings.

Conclusion: Independence Day: Return unfortunately no longer has the big wow effect of the first part and thus offers no more than harmless popcorn entertainment, where you must not put too much emphasis on dialogue and convincing actors. Overall, a nice sequel with some good show values, but unfortunately nothing more. The Blu-ray can fully convince technically. The bonus material is okay, but suffers in places too much from its promo character. For the disc, however, there is still a good: Recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp