general-melchett

Independence Day is really just patriotic drivel in means of plot and adventure. But the film comes into its best moments when the action sequences hit the screen. Buildings explode and men die in beautifully choreographed fashions that raise the bar for many modern action films today.

The film is predictable, and none of the characters are particularly memorable - you aren't really bothered whether they live or die. The plot is so much like War of the Worlds, with more sky battles and aliens, that you may feel that it is just another remake under the same title.

But Roland Emmerich (the director) deserves to be called the undisputed king of action movies - he beautifully directs his films, and the special effects and sound in his films are truly stunning. This was his biggest success, and deservedly so - though The Day after Tomorrow was just as spiffing.

The script ain't strong and the plot ain't great, but this is an action-epic film, and on that scale, Independence Day delivers. It is an extremely memorable experience, and beats action flicks that are being made ten years on. A stunning job that deserves to be called a huge success (in the box office, of course). Great! 8/10

They did the right thing killing Futurama. It would have been nice to have a few more seasons, this being something truly inspired, but because they did that, this will be remembered in years to come as something great, whereas the Simpsons will be shamed as something that they wore down for too long until it became the pure bullsh*t that it is now. Setting it in the year 3000 ensured that Matt Groening and co had literally millions of ideas at their disposal. They could send the characters to Mars, have intergalactic battles, have some crazy cult of robots plotting something... the possibilities were endless. It is a shame that this died after a few seasons - the characters were an interesting bunch too. Bender was my favourite and I absolutely hated Leela - but without Leela, the Planet Express crew would have been a bunch of thick d**kheads who couldn't do anything, so I guess she had to be there. And at least I could always laugh at this - in today's Simpsons, the humour is so poor and canned that I find it hard to smile. They still show it on Sky occasionally - and it is worth a watch as a reminder of when MG actually produced quality stuff. This could always warrant the viewing of a whole episode off me - in the case of the Simpsons, I now normally turn over for something else. It has real hilarity, humour, character, sci-fi and fun - when will they start releasing Futurama episode guidebooks like they do for the Simpsons? It had better be sometime soon before this gem is forgotten... 10/10