Synopsis
On July 2, a giant alien mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped 'destroyer' spacecraft that quickly lay waste to major cities around the planet. On July 3, the United States conducts a coordinated counterattack that fails. On July 4, a plan is devised to gain access to the interior of the alien mothership in space, in order to plant a nuclear missile.
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Cast
- Will SmithCapt. Steven Hiller
- Bill PullmanPresident Thomas J. Whitmore
- Jeff GoldblumDavid Levinson
- Mary McDonnellMarilyn Whitmore
- Judd HirschJulius Levinson
- Robert LoggiaGeneral William Grey
- Randy QuaidRussell Casse
- Margaret ColinConstance Spano
- James RebhornAlbert Nimzicki
- Harvey FiersteinMarty Gilbert
- 88
USA Today
A rousing state-of-the-art cartoon capped by an aerial-combat climax that, to its credit, isn't anti-climactic. [2 July 1996, p.D1] - 83
Entertainment Weekly
It's the first futuristic disaster movie that's as cute as a button. Which, when all the special effects blow over, is what we Americans like in a monster hit. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
The aliens, meanwhile, are a fabulously nasty lot of slimy, tentacled, malevolent telepaths, but all their superior technology is no match for our red, white and blue ingenuity. Take that, space bullies! - 80
The New York Times
Two reasons it's impossible to resist "Independence Day": because of its pitch-perfect cartoonish dialogue ("Now you're never gonna get to fly the space shuttle if you marry a stripper!") and because the Captain, like Indiana Jones, is so unflappably tough. - 80
Empire
Like 2001, Star Wars and Jurassic Park, it ups the special effects stakes and gets closer to putting on screen the images you've had in your mind while reading epic sci-fi. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Cities engulfed by rolling walls of flame, sinister aquamarine power blasts turning beloved national monuments to toast, even the roiling clouds the spaceships appear out of, they are all disturbing, unsettling and completely convincing. - 63
San Francisco Examiner
Fans of sci-fi, special effects, big explosions, panicky crowd scenes and theater sound systems cranked up way beyond the capacity of the human ear to hear comfortably will love this movie. I am not among you. - 50
Washington Post
Cruises to an upbeat ending but furnishes no more of the wicked thrills of the initial hour. Particularly disappointing is the human contrivance employed in the defeat of the vastly superior enemy.