10 Movies That Would Be Outstanding If They Weren't So Long

10. Independence Day

Length: 145 mins Indepence Day is a pretty good sci-fi action flick, and was widely embraced upon its release thanks to its flashy special effects and earnest, popcorn-selling directness. But it's cheesy, B-movie ethos was short-circuited by some embarrassing attempts at characterization and a wholly unnecessary romantic subplot. The plot is as straightforward and paper thin as any standard disaster movie, and boils down to three words: Military versus aliens. Those three words don't require more than 90 minutes to be appropriately fleshed out. And considering that none of the characters are interesting enough to sustain a scene without the aid of an extraterrestrial (with the possible exception of Will Smith), the ratio of scenes with aliens to scenes without should have been 3:1. Instead, there are way too many pissing contests between Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum (who's never allowed to go full-Goldblum during this entire thing, ID4's biggest disappointment) and the whole message about how disparate citizens must band together to defend the country is a bit too uber-patriotic for its own good. (This is supposed to be a disaster movie, not a recruitment ad for the army.) It's fine that your characters are one-dimensional stereotypes. But embrace it! Keep their dialogue and screen time to a minimum, and focus on what everyone paid to see: The Fresh Prince kicking some outer-space ass.