Independence Day

Everybody loves birthdays, and I sure do love birthdays and today is the country's birthday so it's a pretty big birthday! It's the day that George Jefferson wrote the Decoration of Independence and told Curious George that he wasn't the boss of him anymore. And to celebrate we blow ourselves up with firecrackers and wear American flag bikinis. So I honored our nation by watching an epic film about our most solemn holiday.

The great auteur Roland Emmerich has sewn together a tapestry of apocolyptic fabric to wrap us up in an imagined scenario of American bravado in the face of hostile interstellar insurgents. "Independence Day" scared the poop out of me! The jilted boyfriend from "Sleepless in Seattle" is the President!? Now that's scary.

So these big alien spaceships (that look an awful lot like the spaceships from the eighties mini-series "V") go to all the big cities in the world and the dude from "The Fly" is all smart and figures out they're big fat meanie heads and because of a convenient plot device, he's got access to the White House to try and save the world. How is it that every movie this fella is in, his love interest is totally a hottie? Although realism does creep in with the President character. You've got a young inexperienced fella with a slightly dumb look in his eye who only becomes popular after his country is attacked and he slips on a flight-suit.

And then Will Smith wakes up and he goes pee only he doesn't have any manners 'cause he pees with the door open but I guess it doesn't matter 'cause he's hooked up with a stripper who's totally hot and now my suspension of belief has been shattered because strippers never look like Vivica Fox (usually more like Redd Foxx...).

They try to say hi to the aliens but they totally screw up the whole "Close Encounters" light-show greeting and so the aliens totally go off and starts blowin' stuff up like it's Grand Theft Auto IV. I don't know how we're gonna win against them when we let Harry Connick, Jr. be a fighter pilot. We need Wedge! He's like, the only supplemental character to make it through "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back", and "Return of the Jedi." Might as well put Harry in a red shirt and beam him up now.

Cousin Eddie from "Christmas Vacation" is still an alcoholic livin' in a trailer hammin' it up for comic relief. But this time his kids are Hispanic. National Lampoon's Alien Invasion...

Then the old guy from "Taxi" (no, not Jimmy Fallon) drives The Fly from New York to Washington, D.C. in less than five hours during a massive evacuation of the largest city in America. Then he just calls up his old hottie biscotti who just happens to be the aide to the President and she says, sure, come on over, and then he tells the President that he's about to be served a big ole glass of whoop-ass.

KABLAM! Every famous place in the world gets exploded!

Will Smith goes "oh no, you didn't!" and gets all Tom Cruise and gets up in his plane and fights the aliens (whose mini-ships look an awful lot like the Cylon ships in the original "Battlestar Galactica"...) and he shoots one down and goes running up to the alien ship and cold-cocks smelly alien dude and tells him "welcome to Earf!" Just remember that this is a movie and you're not supposed to welcome anybody anywhere with a punch in the face, unless it's a smelly alien that tries to blow you up. Or a giraffe.

They totally nuke Houston! That's awesome...

Holy poop! Commander Data is in this movie, only he's undercover for Starfleet 'cause he's got hippie hair and he's not in his uniform. The President tells him to show him the alien they captured and the alien makes Data talk funny and it tells them that they're all gonna die so Jayne from "Serenity" pops a cap in alien ass. The Fly gets drunk but it makes him figure out how to kill the bad guys and you've gotta be drunk to believe what he comes up with. The aliens must have built their spaceships with parts from old Apple computers 'cause The Fly just plugs his laptop right into the dashboard of the mini-ship they captured and can read all their computer screens and everything.

Deus Ex Macintosh.

So The Fly and The Fresh Prince of Bellair go up into the mother ship and "give it a cold" and it explodes in a big giant green Nyquil explosion and Cousin Eddie flies up the alien ship's butt and constipates it into oblivion. And all this great stuff happens coincidentally on the Fourth of July. It makes sense, though. Lots of explosions, hyperbole, and Will Smith. We just can't have a Fourth of July weekend now without a Will Smith vehicle to drive our patriotism. I'm sure Founding Father Gomez Adams would agree.