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

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

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

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

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

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

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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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 : 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.

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

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

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

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Detestable even as it's charming and ingratiating.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
In an admirable effort to go a different route, MacFarlane has instead done something hopelessly bizarre: He's given his film too much sincerity and story, and it practically crushes whatever fun does exist.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
The film, like most of MacFarlane's work, is a mix of occasional laugh-out-loud moments - there are some here - and cringe-worthy misfires that play a lot more tone-deaf than he seems to intend.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
The comedy, as expected, is scattershot.

Name : Frank Scheck / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Ted's Boston-accented zingers are expertly delivered by the director/star, whose voice talent is undeniable, and Wahlberg again demonstrates that he's skilled at comedy . Seyfried proves adept as well .

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
MacFarlane is cynical, but he's not a cynic, and there are moments in "Ted 2" where you can sense a longing for the gentler and more upbeat entertainment of an earlier generation.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
You realize what it must be like to be trapped in detention with a bunch of 15-year-old boys who think there's nothing more hilarious than repeating the same jokes about porn, pot, and pulling your pud over and over again. It's funny, until it's not.

Name : David Ehrlich / Alias : Time Out
MacFarlane's preference for quantity over quality results in a lot of dead air, but the gags that land are howlers, and all of its crudeness (and racism, and sexism, and homophobia, etc.), the movie beats with a real heart.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
In the midst of comedy, seriousness. The combination feels forced. A more disciplined and smarter director might have been able to successfully blend the two elements, but crude dude MacFarlane hasn't the skill to bring it off.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
I've seen worse comedies this year, and I'll see better.

Name : Dan Callahan / Alias : TheWrap
Bad taste needs to be more honest and more all-inclusive if it's to make a lasting impression, and MacFarlane's bad taste here is both too wishy-washy and too knee-jerk cruel to really make any impact.

Name : Tony Hicks / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
I didn't want to laugh. I swear. But I did laugh at "Ted 2." A lot.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Sure, MacFarlane can write simple jokes as long as the 'f' key on his laptop holds out. Some of them are even funny. But a lot of them don't pay off, and most trod the same well-worn territory - potheads, practical jokes, politically-incorrect cliches.

Name : Jacob Hall / Alias : New York Daily News
Once again, you will believe that a talking CGI stuffed animal can be a racist, hateful monster with no redeeming qualities . but his greatest sin is that he's not funny.

Name : Cary Darling / Alias : Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
The uneven and overly long Ted 2 manages to find moments of uproarious, if raunchy and groan-inducing, humor from today's hot-button headlines. At its best, it's better than Ted 1.0. At its worst, it's like, well, a Seth MacFarlane movie.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
I laughed and laughed at Ted 2 - as I did at the 2012 Ted - and I can hardly tell you what that says about me, let alone about you.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
In its own, sweetly subversive way, this might be just the tolerance plea America needs right now - a movie that says, in effect, "Love thy plushie as thyself."