Review Grade: B

                     Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1996 Maclean Hunter (Canada)

                     Together, Independence Day and Phenomenon represent
                     the flip sides of Hollywood's fixation on close
                     encounters with UFOs-the hostile and benign versions.
                     What falls from the sky will either try to annihilate
                     the world or, like E.T., teach it a universal lesson
                     in peace, love and understanding.
                     Independence Day should be the biggest hit of a
                     record-breaking summer at the box office. It is good
                     fun-for those who do not mind their popcorn thrills
                     spiked with a megaton dose of star-spangled jingoism.
                     The movie serves up a groaning buffet of action
                     genres: a disaster epic, a war movie, a Space Odyssey
                     spectacle, an Alien freak show and a Top Gun
                     dog-fight derby. It adds up to lighthearted pastiche
                     with spectacular visuals.
                     Although it runs 180 minutes, Independence Day wastes
                     no time cutting to the chase. The invasion begins at
                     once, as giant saucer-like slabs are calved from a
                     mother ship that weighs as much as the moon. The
                     slabs hover over major American cities, then destroy
                     them. In the tradition of the D-Day invasion epic,
                     The Longest Day (1962), the action sprawls over a
                     panoramic range of characters. The leads include a
                     serenely droll Jeff Goldblum, who plays yet another
                     quirky scientist (cloned from The Fly and Jurassic
                     Park)-a nerdy computer genius who cracks the code of
                     the aliens' intelligence. Will Smith provides the
                     testosterone as a fighter pilot, a swaggering cowboy
                     dying to kick some alien butt. And Bill Pullman
                     affects some unconvincing dignity as the U.S.
                     president, a former Gulf War pilot who has to make
                     some tough decisions (to nuke or not to nuke) and
                     climbs into an F-14 to play a personal role in saving
                     the world.

                     The film-makers keep the tone cartoonish throughout,
                     dousing doomsday drama with comic relief at every
                     implausible turn of the plot (the least of which is
                     the alien invasion). Sure, there are moments of
                     reverence to observe the devastation of entire
                    cities, or the death of a character. But the
                     solemnity is insincere, and the action quickly
                     reverts to alien-bashing fun and games. Mass
                     destruction has never been such a joyride.

                     Independence Day was co-written by director Roland
                     Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin, the team behind
                     Stargate. Their script does not demand much
                     suspension of disbelief. It is peppered with comic
                     allusions to cultish beliefs in alien visitation and
                     UFO coverup conspiracies. There are jokey references
                     to E.T. and The X-Files. And, reversing the usual
                     procedure, scientists perform an operation on an
                     extraterrestrial, a tentacled, insect-like creature
                     that could have been grafted right out of Alien.

                     In the end, however, the film-makers betray the
                     movie's playful spirit with an orgiastic display of
                     patriotic sentiment. In a fervent speech, the
                     president even has the gall to suggest that
                     Independence Day be turned into a worldwide
                     holiday-"to celebrate freedom not from oppression,
                     tyranny or persecution, but from annihilation." It
                     makes one wonder if the real alien invasion force
                     casting a shadow over the globe is Hollywood itself.