Independence Day (1996)

Independence Day released in 1996 remains one of the most popular adventure and sci-fi movies of all time. It is also in the list of the best disaster movies along with The Day After Tomorrow, Apollo 13 and Armageddon.

The action takes place within three days – from the 2nd to the 4th of July. Quite unexpectedly an immense flying saucer of about 550 km in diameter invades into the near-earth space. The humans' hope that the aliens have come in peace are ruined when the mothership starts to deploy saucers-destroyers which attack the Earth's key points – Washington, Los Angeles, London, Moscow, Tokyo, Rome and so on. When the US air forces try to repel the extraterrestrial aggression, they suffer a complete defeat – the alien destroyers seem to be invincible. The world agonizes in terror and the waves of hot plasma. However, the director Roland Emmerich didn't break the classic canon of Hollywood action movies: if there is a dying world, there is always a hero to save this world. Courageous Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) on his shot plane lures the alien craft into the Grand Canyon, destroys it and captures the alien. The extraterrestrial prisoner is taken to the famous Area51. The lab tests make the alien reveal their intentions. This race travels from one planet to another, depletes all its recourses and annihilates the population. David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), a scientist, works out a plan, based on the idea that the invincible crafts can be destroyed only after the mothership is wrecked. He suggests that it can be paralyzed by a virus infection. To reach the ship the humans are to use the alien craft which crashed in Area51 many years ago. The impressing showdown symbolically coincides with the US greatest holiday – the Independence Day. Even Thomas Whitmore, the president (Bill Pullman) takes an active part in the decisive battle.

The movie is very patriotic and a little pathetic – the Stars and Stripes, the Statue of Liberty and other America's national symbols are flashing on the screen again and again. On the other hand, Independence Day is unlike other disaster movies due to its sparkling humor, the abundance of which creates the unique style of this film. The president whose politics is so unpopular that he is on the verge of impeachment, but still in the top 10 of the US sexiest men; a policeman dropping his car in the middle of the street to stare at the saucer with a stupid air, humorous dialogues, and of course the personage of Will Smith, heroic and funny at once, - these are the features making Independence Day a non-typical movie. To sum it up, it's possible to say that Independence Day combines the features of action, adventure and sci-fi genres.

Though the movie is already 15years old, it is still fresh and up-to-date. The visual effects named the best by the AMPAS in 1996 make a decent competition to such showy blockbusters as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Source Code, Inception, X-Men: First Class, etc. The fact that Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception was awarded in the same nomination in 2010, makes this comparison even more objective. Even though the technologies have improved greatly within these 15 years, the scenes of sky battles and the startling panorama of the giant UFO impending over Washington still make the spectators creepy all over.

Great special effects, strong cast and a patriotic mood – that has proved enough to create more than a good movie. And the Independence Day of the USA became the Independence Day of the whole planet.