Independence Day: Resurgence
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: June 24, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
32
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
2
Mixed:
17
Negative:
21
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireDan JolinJun 21, 2016
As spectacular as you’d hope from a sequel to the 1996 planet-toaster, and as amusingly cheesy. You’ll enjoy yourself enough that you won’t even miss Will Smith. Read full review
70
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganJun 21, 2016
Resurgence doles out the action and effects work in carefully calculated, incremental doses, which give the film a cumulative tension. Even if it’s hokey and jokey, this is a loud, effects-driven piece, with a driving score. For fans of Roland Emmerich disaster movies, this both hits all the marks, while delivering nothing new. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 24, 2016
Both impossible to take seriously or seriously dislike. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinJun 21, 2016
The main thing consumers will be looking for from Resurgence is bang-for-buck entertainment, and that it delivers reasonably successfully. Read full review
60
VarietyGuy LodgeJun 21, 2016
This cinematic Big Mac entertains abundantly on its own second-hand merits. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonJun 21, 2016
It’s all too much too fast, and the cumulative effect is like watching a two-hour trailer – more dizzying than thrilling. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 24, 2016
Resurgence ends up falling victim to its attempts to differentiate itself while remaining completely derivative. Read full review
58
The Film StageDaniel SchindelJun 24, 2016
Despite all this, Independence Day: Resurgence still emerges as one of the better blockbusters of this summer, and that’s only halfway damning with faint praise. It’s a mess, but I grinned a good portion of the way through. Read full review
55
TheWrapJason SolomonsJun 21, 2016
The spaceships and the destruction are bigger but not better in Roland Emmerich‘s twenty-years-later follow-up, where only Jeff Goldblum‘s sense of humor saves the day. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneJun 27, 2016
No surprise, then, that Goldblum seems a little lonely and marooned in the latest venture, which suffers from a nagging case of Smithlessness. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 27, 2016
Tarnishes the image of its predecessor but the original Independence Day wasn’t all that good to begin with. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJun 24, 2016
The disaster sequences themselves — of which there are many, placed at regular intervals but disconnected from the story, like operatic arias — have a dreamlike and weirdly exhilarating quality that’s quite different from the plodding wham-bam destruction of the average action blockbuster. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerMolly EichelJun 23, 2016
While the plot is dumb and the script is worse, watching aliens explode in spectacular fashion isn't the worst excuse to spend to two hours in air-conditioning. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesJimmy GeurtsJun 24, 2016
Fails both as a film and even as fan service. Read full review
40
CineVueChristopher MachellJul 14, 2016
Lacks both the iconic heft of its predecessor's imagery as well as any sense of character development. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekJun 24, 2016
Goldblum manages to rise above the proceedings via his invisible jetpack of dry wit — thank God for that. The only newcomer who emerges unscathed is Gainsbourg, who glides through this mess with Zen equanimity—even as chaos reigns, she keeps her cool. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 24, 2016
Laughably bad dialogue and wooden acting. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 21, 2016
This isn’t just lazy, it’s borderline nonsensical. Resurgence inflates the scale of the alien threat to such a preposterous degree – the mothership takes up roughly an eighth of the Earth’s total surface – that the queues of honking traffic and rooftop helicopter rescues we’re supposed to invest in can’t help but feel like microscopic trifles. Read full review
40
Total FilmJamie GrahamJun 21, 2016
This might have been titled ‘Independence Day: Submergence’. It’s certainly hard not to drown in the sea of CGI, with the exponential increase of pixels being to Independence Day what the Star Wars prequels were to the original trilogy. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 24, 2016
The movie must be bad, right? Worse, it’s a bore. Read full review
38
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 24, 2016
This is a disaster by committee. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJun 24, 2016
It’s just dull and hollow — a massive waste of time and money. The characters are flimsy, the dialogue is stilted and the amount of destruction is ridiculous. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 24, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence pretends there's fresh ground to cover. There isn't, but director Roland Emmerich makes a good show of faking it. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 24, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is all big effects, big explosions, epic battles rendered in state-of-the-art strokes. But really bad writing, achingly bad acting, groaning scenes and a serious lack of suspense and surprise all add up to zero fun, this time around. Read full review
38
USA TodayBrian TruittJun 24, 2016
Ridiculousness needs to abound somewhat in a film like this — reality takes a seat early and often here — but Resurgence pushes everything to an egregiously over-the-top and often infuriating degree. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRuss FischerJul 14, 2016
There’s no heart in this movie, no urgency. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovJun 28, 2016
Honestly, I could watch Goldblum and Gainsbourg – two of the most quirkily sublime multihypenate artists alive – reading phonebooks to each other and enjoy the experience thoroughly, but sadly even they seem wasted here. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 24, 2016
The lackluster, at times abysmal writing wouldn’t much matter if Resurgence popped visually or featured a charismatic star who could lift a movie as effortlessly as Will Smith did in the first feature. Read full review
30
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Jun 24, 2016
While the first "Independence Day" was genuinely big, dumb fun, its sequel only manages to be a bigger, dumber bore. Read full review
30
ScreenCrushMatt SingerJun 23, 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence is a bad movie, occasionally in ways that are good for a chuckle, like when people earnestly deliver lines like “Now listen up! They’re going for our molten core!” but mostly just bad in ways that make you wish you hadn’t wasted your money or your time. Read full review
25
ConsequenceDominick Suzanne-MayerJun 24, 2016
A curiously loud and ugly beast of a sequel. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubJun 24, 2016
The sequel is even more silly, and much less fun. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 24, 2016
I saw Resurgence an hour and a half ago, and I feel like an alien wiped my memory clean already. Read full review
25
New York PostLou LumenickJun 23, 2016
The first “Independence Day’’ was a lot of fun, with a great lines and cutting-edge special effects. It was much imitated, so the sequel plays like a faded, eighth-generation copy with a cast that’s shooting blanks when it comes to humor. Read full review
20
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 24, 2016
This hodgepodge has been thrown together in so slovenly a way that it’s no surprise the studio didn’t show it to the press. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 21, 2016
Joyless and tedious, a reboot quite without the first film’s audacity and fun... It’s a movie that is going through the intergalactic motions. Read full review
16
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJun 24, 2016
An immaculate case-study in how far blockbusters have fallen. Read full review
0
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJun 24, 2016
One of the most aggressively stupid blockbusters ever made, a painful exercise in Hollywood greed and artistic incompetence on every level. Read full review
0
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 24, 2016
Disposable and shockingly inept. Read full review
0
Slant MagazineChuck BowenJun 24, 2016
Emmerich rewards our patience with an impersonally massive set piece involving the usual generic stew of mass CGI-imagined demolition. The insensitivity displayed toward human life in these sequences would be galling even by Emmerich's standards, if this pitiful albatross of corporate capitalism could work up enough energy to be offensive. Read full review
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