Independence Day (1996)
If you can get past some of the corny dialogue, Will Smith's cocky but star making patter and the fact that once again America saves the world there's still a really good film here almost thirty years on.
The first hour remains gripping viewing, culminating in several major US cities being wiped out - the destruction of the White House remains genuinely mind blowing cinema - and some exciting air dog fights between alien ships and fighter jets during the second half, before Bill Pullman's president delivers a seriously terrible jingoistic, pompous but rousing speech of utter bollocks which will either have you whooping and laughing into your beer (or whisky) or reaching for the remote control as the film comes to it's explosive climax.
It has flaws certainly. That f*cking speech for one. Why decimate American cities and not London or Sydney? Answer because then you can't have your final shots of the huge alien flying saucers crashing down alongside world famous landmarks if they've already been destroyed would be my guess. Meanwhile Jeff Goldblum appears to be reprising his Jurassic Park Ian Malcolm boffin role, although not as cool, from three years earlier, but overall Roland Emmerich's film is still a great piece of sci-fi blockbuster spectacle.
I'd not seen ID4 in years and thought it was a fantastic Blu-ray experience, especially in it's 5:1 surround mix.
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