The world is saved from murderous aliens by five main characters, including the US president who flies one of the attack planes.

"How much did they spend on this movie? God damned in hell fire. Please excuse me I just popped!"

"All I'm saying is if the aliens turn up now with George W Bush as president I hope George can fight them off with an oil contract or something. And if this don't give Cheney THE heart attack nothing will. Damn."

"The special effects blew my skirt up, or maybe I was standing too close to that under pavement air stream again?"

"A movie which is actually improved by watching with adverts in it."

"A movie to watch when you are doing something else."

"This movie makes no sense whatsoever, but the characters all look young and healthy and it directions its spunk in all the right places."

"May I just complement all the white boys in this movie for their wonderfully sexy tans?"

"So, all that money on special effects, and it still all comes down to a single crop spraying guy who spends most of his time getting drunk?"

Big flying saucers appear throughout the world, they want to kill us all.

Tanned, fit looking scientist (Jeff Goldblum) discovers a way of penetrating alien space ship defenses (a computer virus) so mankind can blow them away. Will Smith plays a US airforce pilot.

All aliens seen off after inflicting terrible damage to world's landmark buildings in show stopping CGI horror-fest. The Empire State Building gets it, along with the White House.

Crop spraying dude flies ship into alien craft to blow it up. After this, other alien ships give up and go home all on 4th July, the all new Independence Day, thereafter giving the English a break for the first time in over 200 years.

Anything with more than 50% saturated fat, cigarettes and hard liquor.

In the position of waiting to select additional special features on your remote.

Yes. There are no all time great moments of acting excellence in this movie; any good performances would probably look out of place in any case.

This is a dog movie. Dogs will pull their sleeping basket over to the television when this movie is on, then will carefully bring over their water bowl, improbably balanced on their nose without spilling a drop; they will then sit slurping from the water bowl throughout the whole movie chuckling occasionally in a deep Scooby Doo voice.

Cats will climb onto furniture and playfully somersault backwards throughout the movie, as they question the plausibility of the plot and try to drop into the dog's newly positioned water bowl.

Pet ducks will resent this movie and could become visibly distressed at times: Make sure to put them outside or they are liable to toilet violently on your carpet during the loud explosion scenes.

This is a make out movie dream. We recommend either wearing the Will Smith modeled - vest/military gear (without the boots), or the crop sprayers' be-goggled helmet, the choice is yours.

A small piece of genuine alien butt leather.

A great movie to have on when you are writing a letter to someone or when you are on the internet.

The whole movie is a load of puff, although the special effects are memorable and were really the whole point of the movie in the first place.

In 1996, when this movie came out, we could not image the White House blowing up like that. Things have changed considerably since then.

This movie remains a movie high up in popular recollection that you need to see just in case the movie comes up in any discussions with street based traders.

February 27, 2002