TheRetroCritic

For every successful disaster movie, there's a forgotten one and The Core is, unfortunately, the latter. Released in 2003, the film wasn't exactly the lucrative blockbuster it planned to be and critics weren't too thrilled with it. Many have criticised the film for being scientifically inaccurate and preposterous but that's completely missing the point of The Core. This is an homage to old-fashioned disaster movies from The Birds to Journey To The Centre Of The Earth and The Fantastic Voyage with updated technology and slicker visuals, of course. The film is clearly tongue-in-cheek and is not meant to be taken too seriously so the fact it received more scrutiny than Independence Da y or other equally silly releases is frankly unfair. Armed with a solid cast and some genuinely tense set-pieces, The Core is far more fun than critics gave it credit for and it manages to avoid being annoying and over-patriotic like most of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich's outp

20 years after Will Smith first punched an alien in the face in the original Independence Day , director Roland Emmerich brings us a belated sequel to one of the 90's biggest blockbusters. Independence Day: Resurgence brings back some familiar faces while adding some young blood to the cast as those pesky extraterrestrials come back with an updated plan to destroy the world with a giant spaceship. Having to follow such a simple concept must have made the writing not too much of a chore and, indeed, the story is one of this sequel's best elements: it's more of the same except we delve deeper into how those aliens work (a lot like bees, it turns out) plus meet a brand new entity who is both an ally and a liability. There's enough there in terms of danger and intrigue to keep even the most reluctant viewer interested throughout. Add to that a reliably good Jeff Goldblum, a dramatic character arc involving Bill Pullman's ex-President plus lots of mindless destruct

I talk about Roland Emmerich's belated sci-fi sequel Independence Day: Resurgence . Welcome to Earth... again.