Where I praised INDEPENDENCE DAY for its sincerity, RESURGENCE comes across as very cynical, relishing in the kind of self-conscious and self-aware quippily non-naturalistic dialogue of a lot of modern blockbusters. Despite the grander scale (mostly conveyed by the physics-defyingly huge alien ship of this film), there are several elements that come together to make everything feel much smaller than the original film. The green screen soundscape visuals and CGI effects look worse and feel smaller than the original’s exterior shooting and impressive miniatures. Rather than a rag-tag cast of characters who come together in the end to triumph as one, all the characters start the film already connected and never actually need help from any other nation on Earth.