Name : Gary Goldstein / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Director Chris Dowling should have taken another swing at his script for the sake of clarity and dimension before cameras rolled.

Name : Neil Genzlinger / Alias : New York Times
Not to be flip, but "Where Hope Grows" has the potential to be a decent inspirational film until God shows up.

Name : Michael Nordine / Alias : Village Voice
Writer-director Chris Dowling handles [the] worrisome premise with a more even hand than this genre's ill-advised predecessors .

Name : Joe Leydon / Alias : Variety
Like most if not all faith-based entertainments, "Where Hope Grows" embraces the idea that God works in mysterious ways. But it also insists that God helps only those who help themselves.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
"Where Hope Grows" wears its heart on its sleeve, hawking its message of salvation through faith to anyone who's in the market for cheesy uplift and saccharine sentiment.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
The only thing resurgent in this humorless alien mess is Hollywood's passion to charge us more and deliver less.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
It's a non-movie, an insult to the blockbuster genre, and should stand only as a perfect example of Hollywood's more glaring deficiencies as an industry.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
The temptation is there to say that Independence Day: Resurgence tarnishes the image of its predecessor but the original Independence Day wasn't all that good to begin with.

Name : Molly Eichel / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
I remember sitting in the theater watching the first Independence Day as a kid, mouth agape at what the movies could do. I'm a little more cynical at this point.

Name : Lisa Schwarzbaum / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's the first futuristic disaster movie that's as cute as a button. Which, when all the special effects blow over, is what we Americans like in a monster hit.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Disposable and shockingly inept.

Name : Jason Solomons / Alias : TheWrap
While it would be foolish to say Independence Day: Resurgence lacks spectacle, scene after scene of the stuff becomes repetitive due to its victimless violence. It feels like no one ever gets hurt, despite the destruction of half the planet.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
The film is so cluttered with characters, exposition and space junk, thickly lacquered with 3D, it's like a party pinata waiting to burst open - but inside are rocks, not toys.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Want to see things blow up good? Independence Day: Resurgence really delivers. However, if you like a bit of story to go with all those explosions - forget it.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
By the time the big battle happens at the end, CGI has rendered the Earth bleak and unrecognizable; like it's not worth saving.

Name : Ignatiy Vishnevetsky / Alias : AV Club
Resurgence ends up falling victim to its attempts to differentiate itself while remaining completely derivative.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
It's just dull and hollow-a massive waste of time and money.

Name : Jonathan Rosenbaum / Alias : Chicago Reader
The earnestness, the effects, and the notion of a whole world forgetting its differences to defeat a common foe carry a certain charm.

Name : Todd McCarthy / Alias : Variety
As unavoidably entertaining as it is hopelessly cornball.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
The plot is a big jumble of story lines, nonsense science talk and lots of "in '96" references. Speaking of '96, there's nothing even remotely as thrilling or memorable as the first here.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
You can forgive Independence Day: Resurgence for being ridiculous - its predecessor was too. But you can't forgive it for being boring.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
Returning director Roland Emmerich's film checks all the appropriate boxes - wanton destruction, malevolent aliens, B-movie dialogue, rampant silliness - but the old charm just isn't there anymore.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Well that was unnecessary.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
The results are predictably predictable if rarely entertainingly risible, with swaths of exposition and dialogue that sounds like ads ("one people, one world").

Name : Carol Buckland / Alias : CNN.com
Splendidly cheesy entertainment.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
"IDR" moves right along at the rapid clip essential for a story whose general outline is known from the get-go. What actually happens on screen is less important than that it unfolds really, really fast.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The main thing consumers will be looking for from Resurgence is bang-for-buck entertainment, and that it delivers reasonably successfully.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
From the metallic shell of the 1996 smash "Independence Day," director Roland Emmerich has pulled a seriously lousy sequel, dripping with alien goo and incoherence.

Name : David Ansen / Alias : Newsweek
If I were a 10-year-old boy, I'd probably think it was the coolest movie going.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
The first "Independence Day" had the gratifying slap of good pop cinema, harmless and weightless; the follow-up is twice as big and half as fun.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
I didn't like "Independence Day: Resurgence." You probably won't either.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
Look, this isn't supposed to be Serious Cinema. I get that. I also know that there is a cinematic place for over-the-top action. I also know that it doesn't have to be stupid, because I saw "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
"Independence Day: Resurgence" delivers swiftly and generously when it comes to the goods most viewers will have come for - the time-honored joys of blowing stuff up, in set pieces that escalate dizzyingly in size and context.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
An insanely OTT sequel to the already-ludicrous-enough alien invasion smash.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
The first "Independence Day'' was a lot of fun, with a great lines and cutting-edge special effects. It was much imitated, so the sequel plays like a faded, eighth-generation copy with a cast that's shooting blanks when it comes to humor.

Name : Rita Kempley / Alias : Washington Post
Maybe the moviemakers' mission was to boldly go where everyone in Hollywood has gone before: the bank.

Name : Brian Lowry / Alias : CNN.com
Moreover, the movie keeps announcing over and over exactly how much time is left before the world gets destroyed. In practical terms, that simply reminds the audience that this two-hour exercise feels like a pretty long sit, despite its frenetic pacing.