Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

An action-packed slog

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I don't care if Antonioni or Bergman is your favorite director, or how many Criterion Collection films you own, or if you're college dissertation was on the intricacies inherent in the auteur theory. Bill Pullman's speech is rousing, inspiring, well-written, incredibly delivered and simply awesome...you know it and I know it.

Is this movie implausible? Yes. Plot holes? Yes. If you are looking to find them. But! it is not a documentary or a serious drama. It's a popcorn flick about aliens. It's fun, it's loud it's a great way to spend a couple of hours. It's a Merica type movie we win in the end. The effects are even more stunning now since most in the film a models and practical effects. I.E it really happened not CGI that's a marvel in itself. The movie is what movies are supposed to be entertaining and allow you to see and experience something that you could not in our everyday lives. Sit down shut up and enjoy the ride.

Scientists living in the United States intercept a strange alien "transmission" from outer space that turns out to be a count down. I do not know why the aliens would send any type of "message" that the humans could receive. At zero, the invading aliens propel a laser pulse from positioned destroyer ships that demolishes various major cities on earth including DC, where the President originally is. The idea, I imagine, is to reduce morale and make it easier to kill them all! To prevent their annihilation, while at Area 51, one American scientists proposes a plan to the President who arrived by Air Force One with him to give the alien computer system a virus. This virus will bring down all of the alien shields so that the united human counter-offensive can use some of their own weapons, i.e., a nuclear missile. The Americans discovered previously they were not able to penetrate past them; after the first strike the President ordered the military to launch a nuclear bomb from a grounded armored vehicle that had a visual of one of the destroyers in sight. The missile was not able to pass its shield. The scientist and a soldier commandeer a captured enemy jet stored there, at Area 51, and successfully upload the virus into the mother ship by flying the jet into the mother ship's docking bay and connecting to their computer system. With their shields down, each and every of the invader's ships is taken down. All the humans had to do was remove their shields.

So Independence Day isn't for everyone, so what? It's still better than most of those other recent disaster films. It made a ton of money when it came out and won an Oscar. I don't care for Oscars, but that's not why I go to movies in the first place. I go to a movie to be entertained, not to pick apart like a Rotisserie chicken. That's my two cents. And even if the dialogue isn't the best, it's still interesting. Many of the lines are memorable and fun to listen to as a fan. I'd even heard of some of them used in other TV shows and video games. This movie is one of those love-it-or-hate-it films, but I'm one of the people who love it. Alien ships, destruction, dogfights, and different people banding together to fight a common foe. Will they survive? Only time will tell.