Flawed, but enjoyable. Truth be told, nothing Devlin and Emmerich do is particularly original, and if you're familiar with their work you'll recognize all their tropes throughout this movie. That said, they at times really don't know when to end a movie, like in the 1998 Godzilla where Godzilla is defeated, then they have to fight the baby Godzillas, then once they're taken care of Godzilla returns and has to be defeated again. This movie had a similar problem, we've destroyed the alien Queen's ship, on no, Queen has a personal shield, let's destroy the shield, oh, now the Queen has all the fighters swarming around her. And now, after a fight that really should have ended fifteen minutes earlier, the Queen is finally defeated.
Okay, so, why isn't a computer virus even considered this time? If a 1990s computer virus was enough to cripple the aliens last time, a 2016 computer virus augmented with their own technology should basically own them like little bitches. Yet not once is this tried.
While I get that they were mostly focused on introducing new characters to continue the franchise on, it would have been nice to if not include these characters from the first, at least mention why they're not around anymore. In particular, Connie, Levinson's ex-wife in the first one is nowhere in the movie or even mentioned. I guess we can conclude that despite rekindling their romance at the end of the first they never go back together given Levinson now has a new love interest and there's history between them (well, it has been twenty years). Major Mitchell (Adam Baldwin) I thought would have been the natural choice to be the general in command of the space forces, though I wonder if Baldwin's commitments to The Last Ship made that undoable. Still would have been nice to have a mention, though.
So in light of cities which were destroyed last time being rebuilt exactly the same as they were before the attacks, only to get destroyed again this time, a though occurs. Australia is basically untouched by the aliens, isn't it? At the end of the first one, we see Sydney undamaged, and indeed an intact Opera House was featured quite prominently. And given the harvester was no were near that part of the world, that country has survived two alien invasions with no damage. Shouldn't that make them more influential in global politics?
Finally, a bit of a nitpick. I'm intentionally avoiding most nitpicks, since this kind of popcorn fluff is bound to be loaded with too many, but one I can't let slide is the fact that apparently the world is okay because the drill shut down even though it was only a minute away from reaching the core. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure in that situation, we're pretty much screwed anyway.