Review of Bastille Day (2016) by Tarciryan — 01 Jul 2016

Childhood ruined.

At 11 years of age, ID4 was my first "grow-up" movie experience, going with a class mate to see a movie that wasn't a cartoon or obviously aimed at a younger audience (Mrs. Doubtfire etc). I was blown away then and I still enjoy re-watching the original to this day.

Now enter this steaming pile of hippo turd-fiesta. The dialogue, which I so fondly remember as funny and on-the-spot from 96, was replaced with generic, unfunny and mostly all out terrible. Most of the actors returning where screaming for a better plot. Bill Pullman: genereic PTSD THEY ARE COMING! The ever so charming Judd Hirch was shoehorned in just so we could point and say "that guy, Davids father", with a subplot that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie before magically appearing with his son just as the final scene unfolds. Vicia A Fox just thrown in so she could die in a vain attempt at drama towards the son of Captain Hiller, a character free of development and not someone to care the least about. And of course Jeff Goldblum. So funny in a quirky way, reduced to a monotonous idiot with a script that doesn't know what to do with him so he just tries to recapture the magic from the 90s and fails miserably.

All in all I shouldn't be surprised. Roland Emmerich makes bad movies and ID4 was the exception. This was not. I give it a 3 just for the sake of initial nostalgia and a couple of decent action sequences.