Independence Day

Date of Birth: the film opened in the US just in time for Independence Day on July 4th this year.

Appearance: Enormous, huge, colossal. Mega, gigantic, massive. Really big.

So what is it? You could say that it is another Hollywood special effects extravaganza, but you'd only be half right. It certainly is all that - a widescreen invasion of the US by nasty extraterrestrial life forms - but it also trails a lengthy list of new film industry records behind it. The unmissable puff articles appearing in every medium right now...

Do you include yourself in that? . . . will fill you in on the cost of everything, and the rewards. So I won't insult you by telling you here.

Oh, go on. Insult me: If you insist, then. The film stole $104 million of hard earned wages in six days, a feat which included gobbling up $100 million in just three days.

Does that make it a good film? Perceptive as ever, I see. As the competition to create the lucrative summer hit in the US gets stiffer and stiffer each year, the emphasis tends to fall more and more on clever marketing. Well, the campaign for Independence Day has involved some of the sharpest film marketing yet conceived. The film's advertising campaign was in full swing six months before the film was released. Then to make sure that the film beat all records for "opening weekends" Fox (Rupert Murdoch's film studios) screened the film all night long over its initial days of release.

There is also a host of other smart little tieins. Sky News features as the satellite channel reporting the invasion, so Murdoch's news service has been able to run reports on its own appearance in the film. Whatever about the special effects, the explosive synergy is breathtaking.

So I suppose the plot is not exactly a priority here: Not exactly. What is important, besides the book keeping, is the realer than real destruction of the White House, the obliteration of a handful of American cities and some whirlpooling dog fights with alien jet fighters. And everybody has already seen those big set piece scenes in the trailers.

Well, I haven't. Are they impressive? The least you could say is that some of them tend to linger in the mind. In one particular shot - which also appears on the film's posters a mammoth alien mothership casts a gargantuan shadow over vulnerable Manhattan. You can't help thinking that the film casts that kind of shadow over cinema. It hovers there improbably, bringing darkness and threatening doom to the seventh art of the cinema. If this is the future, Mike Leigh and Eric Rohmer are not going to be selling many more cinema tickets.

Aren't you over reacting a little? I mean, you make what should be a good night at the Omniplex sound like the end of the world: The end of the world, Toto, will be when they start making blockbusters about the weather in Kansas.