I caved and saw it. I've been looking for an excuse to check out a movie with a Dolby Atmos presentation, and I finally did- which sounded and looked incredible I might add.
Now, to be clear, this is a really dumb movie. But I honestly didn't hate it. It was...mostly successful in terms of getting me to shut up my inner critic and just enjoy the show, even though I know there are plenty of holes. It also feels a bit more self-aware than the first one though in terms of embracing its cheesiness. Granted, there are still many forced attempts at humor that fall completely flat. But Brent Spiner's increased presence alone gives this movie a campier feel that I didn't mind and was kind of hoping for. The leads were really bland as expected, but Goldblum, Pullman and Spiner got me through it.
I'm not always a fan of excessive world-building (looking at you BvS and ASM2), but considering they had a 20 year gap to cover I thought all of that stuff was handled really well actually and was probably my favorite aspect of the movie. While the stakes in this movie never felt quite as dire and urgent as they did in the original film, this movie does try its best to honor the events of the 1996 and give it weight, which I appreciated as someone who did grow up watching that movie so much....even though I realize today that it's not a great film.
For some nostalgic moments, pretty good VFX, Pullman/Goldblum/Spiner, and decent world-building I think I'm sitting at a 5.5/10. If the film had gotten me to buy into the stakes a bit more and gotten me invested in the new leads, I might've really liked this a lot more. As it stands, it was about what I was expecting. The shoehorned threequel bait at the end was too much though, and I don't know if the world is gonna be clamoring for ID4-3. I will say that his is probably my second favorite Emmerich film next to the original, for whatever that's worth.