ReviewsRolling Stone - ...For fun, fright and thrills, there's not a wilder joy ride around..., Variety - ...A spectacularly scaled mix of '50s-style alien invader science fiction, '70s disaster epics and all-season gung-ho military actioners..., USA Today - ...A rousing state-of-the-art cartoon capped by an aerial-combat climax..., Sight and Sound - ...INDEPENDENCE DAY fulfills the promise of the movies: to deliver the audience out of the everyday and into the sensational..., Entertainment Weekly - "...Witty, of-the-moment fun." -- Rating: B+
Additional InformationWith a $71 million budget and mind-blowing special effects, INDEPENDENCE DAY is a grand, high-tech throwback to such films of the 1950s as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WAR OF THE WORLDS. Here, aliens, in numerous gargantuan spaceships, arrive without warning and hover over the world's most important cities, creating global panic. The nasty visitors use death rays to blow New York, Washington D.C, and Los Angeles to smithereens. A handful of plucky Americans, including the Clinton-esque President, a gung-ho fighter pilot and a computer geek named David, attempt to devise a strategy against the invaders.<BR>On July 4th, their risky plan is put into effect, as dozens of fighter pilots (including the President) wage an assault on the spaceships. However, their success (and the fate of the world) depends on David, who is attempting to disarm the aliens's mothership.
ScreenwriterDean Devlin, Roland Emmerich
Costume DesignerJoseph A. Porro