Once upon a time I was part of Team Independence Day. Back when it was shooting in ’95, I mean. I loved the concept, I knew producer Dean Devlin to some extent (he was good at talking up journalists), and at Dean’s invitation I once visited the Playa del Rey Independence Day set with Jett and Dylan when they were six and five, respectively. Then the big premiere happened in Westwood the following summer…thud. I mostly hated it. Nobody loved it. I remember walking through the UCLA campus on the way to the after-party and listening to a talent agent, walking nearby, tell a friend or colleague that it was “bad, bad, bad.”

I decided that night that I’d never again see Independence Day, and I never did. And that I’d never see a sequel. And so I’ve never had any intention of seeing Independence Day: Resurgence (20th Century Fox, 6.24) in any format — no all-media, no paid-ticket screening, no Bluray, no streaming…nothing. Shitty idea. Horrific prospect. Eraserhead.

From Peter Bradshaw‘s 6.21 Guardian review: “Joyless and tedious, a reboot quite without the first film’s audacity and fun. The plot’s potentially interesting dependence on the idea that there are aliens who are allies as well as enemies is lost in a tiresomely written muddle — an all-but-plotless melee of boring digital carnage. The first film was a creature of the pre-digital age when the spacecraft on screen were mostly physical models, but it can’t be entirely the fault of our digital age that this film has no real sense of excitement and awe. It’s a movie that is going through the intergalactic motions.”