The best shot in ``Independence Day'' is one of the first ones, of avast shadow falling across the lunar surface. Visitors have arrived frombeyond the solar system, and soon their presence is detected in ourskies. Their ship is pretty big: ``One- fourth the size of the moon!'' ascientist gasps, and although an object that size in near-Earth orbitmight be expected to cause tidal waves, this is not a movie that slowsdown for the small details.

As the president of the United States and an assortment ofother stock movies types look on, the mother ship dispatches smallersaucers (only 15 miles across) to hover menacingly above Earth's cities.

Do they come in peace? Don't make me laugh. As David (Jeff Goldblum), abroadcast technician and computer whiz, soon discovers, they are usingour own satellite system to time an attack.

How does he know that? Because his laptop receives the signaland displays it as a digital readout. As the hours and minutes tick downtoward Armageddon, I had only one question: Why are the aliens usinghours and minutes? Does their home planet have exactly the same lengthof day and year as ours? How very nice.

``Independence Day'' is not just an inheritor of the 1950sflying saucer genre, it's a virtual retread--right down to the panic inthe streets, as terrified extras flee toward the camera and theskyscrapers frame a horrible sight behind them. Like those old B movies,the alien threat is intercut with lots of little stories involvingcolorful characters, who are chosen for their ethnic, occupational andsexual diversity. Representing the human race here are not only Davidthe techhead and the president, but also assorted blacks, Jews, Arabs,Brits, exotic dancers, homosexuals, cute kids, generals, drunken cropdusters, tight-lipped defense secretaries and ``The McLaughlin Group.''There is not a single character in the movie who doesn't wear aninvisible label.

Although the special effects in ``Independence Day'' areelaborate and pervasive, they aren't outstanding. The giant saucers area dark, looming presence at the top of a lot of shots, big but dull, andthe smaller ``fighter'' saucers used by the aliens are adisappointment--clunky, squat little gray jobs that look recycled out ofancient Rocket Men of Mars adventures.

When the aliens attack, there are shots of the White Houseand the Empire State Building getting blowed up real good, but if thesecreatures can field a spaceship a fourth the size of the moon, why dothey bother engaging in aerial dogfights with the U.S. Air Force? Andwhy don't they blow up everything at once? Or knock out the Internetwith a neutron bomb, instead of simply causing snow and static on TVscreens? And why don't the humans react more? At one point, the newscomes that New York, Washington and Los Angeles have been destroyed, andis there grief? Despair? Anguish? Speculation about what that will meanfor professional sports? Not a bit--the characters nod and hurry on tothe next scene.

We're not supposed to ask such questions, I know. We'resupposed to get wrapped up in the story, and there are some neat ideasin the movie--especially the revelation that Area 51, the government's``secret'' base north of Las Vegas, actually does harbor that alienspaceship everybody believes the feds captured in New Mexico in 1948.

The spaceship and some embalmed aliens are guarded far below the earth,and the underground lab is run by the long- haired Dr. Okun (played bynone other than Brent Spiner, who is Data on ``Star Trek: The NextGeneration''). Okun is your classic mad-scientist type, complaining,``They don't let us out much,'' and telling the president, ``Guess you'dlike to see the big tamale, eh?'' As the president readies Earth's response, it is clear muchwill depend on a jerry-built solution by David, whom Goldblum plays as ahemming and hawing genius. His plan, after he devises it, depends onfighter ace Steven Hiller (Will Smith) for its delivery. But whatGoldblum comes up with, I cannot reveal. No, I insist. I only observethat it is a wonder these aliens have traveled across uncountedlight-years of space and yet have never thought of a computer virusprotection program. (My theory is that any aliens who could be taken inby this particular plan probably arrived here after peddling acrossspace on bicycles.) For all of its huge budget, ``Independence Day'' is a timidmovie when it comes to imagination. The aliens, when we finally seethem, are a serious disappointment; couldn't they think of anything moreinteresting than octopus men? If an alien species ever does visit Earth,I for one hope they have something interesting to share with us. Or, ifthey must kill us, I hope they do it with something we haven't seenbefore, instead of with cornball ray-beams that look designed by thesame artists who painted the covers of Amazing Stories magazine in the1940s.

Still, ``Independence Day'' is in the tradition of silly summerfun, and on that level I kind of liked it, as, indeed, I kind of likeany movie with the courage to use the line, ``It's the end of the worldas we know it.''