15) 'Independence Day' (1996)
One suspects that the thing today is to give this picture short shrift, particularly because it's one of those -- that is, one of those sci-fi films widely embraced by a larger public that more often than not likes to look down at sci-fi. And also because it isn't so much good sci-fi as it is good blowing-stuff-up stuff. But. It cannot be denied. The Roland Emmerich-directed alien-invasion-and-Earth-resistance movie is a really packed compendium of sci-fi blockbuster convention and action, mixed and executed for ultimate crowd wowing and rousing, and it really works in that respect. And, also, you've never seen New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles blown up so convincingly either before or since, have you? No. It may be a cliché, and inaccurate to boot, to say "resistance is futile," but it isn't wrong to say that resistance is unnecessary; there's just no point in fighting this movie's pleasures.
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