Independence Day: Resurgence is an enjoyable hot mess

of a film that spends so much of its two hours trying to explain what happened in the first movie and who all these new people are that it barely has time to wedge in the present-day story.  Its science makes no sense, and the alien menace's deep secret is the same one we've seen repeatedly over the years from alien menaces.

Despite all that, I had a good time.  All of us who went to see it did, and from the sound of the audience and the smattering of applause at the end, so did most of the folks in the theater.

Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Brent Spiner, and Judd Hirsch got to reprise their roles and play key parts in the new plot.  The new generation of folks relied mostly on Liam Hemsworth's minimal charisma, but they were cute enough and spunky enough for us to enjoy it when they went alien hunting.

What made the movie work despite all of its flaws is that it's hard not to like a story in which aliens trash most of our planet and then we improbably whip their butts.  The effects were generally good, the threats huge, and the solutions just barely plausible--don't ever think about them--that you could let them whiz by and still have a good time.

It's a fun enough summer ride, and I'm glad I took it.