Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Following an unscheduled day off work and the resulting ennui, I decided to pop down to the cinema to have a gander at the latest no-brainer action flick from Replacement Killers director Antoine Fuqua. I expected something along the lines of Die Hard, and it delivered. As ever, spoilers lurk...
The premise is simple enough: the White House comes under attack from a North Korean terrorist group who take the President hostage, and it's up to troubled former Presidential guard King Leonidas Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to save the day, and in that respect it is a direct genetic descendent of Die Hard, a lone hero against hordes of ruthless enemies, with only a radio linking him to the outside world. In the same way that McClane was carrying the baggage of the split from Holly in Die Hard, here Banning carries the baggage of a split-second decision that saved the President's life but at the cost of the First Lady. A lot is made of this in the first third of the movie, with Banning having flashbacks to That NightTM and showing Man EmotionTM (but falling short of crying Man TearsTM), but mysteriously once the shooting starts (of which there is an awful lot), the PTSD vanishes in a puff of gunfire, never again to rear its ugly head.
Of course, there are dozens of other movies like it on the market, so it has to have something more. And what it has is one of the most impressively vicious battle scenes I have seen in any movie that isn't Saving Private Ryan. The attack on the White House is immense, a ten-minute orgy of destruction and devastation, with some ingenious tactics employed by the North Koreans (the villain du jour of modern US movies, replacing Islamic Jihadists or disgruntled former KGB agents) to breach the White House defences.
Of course, like many such action scenes, it depends not only on the villains being ruthless in the execution of their plans, but also in the beleagured Secret Service forces being as stupid as the plot requires, which is quite a bit. When coming under massed assault rifle and heavy machine gun fire, hordes of secret service personnel armed with pistols seem to just line up neatly on the steps of the White House to get mown down, rather than taking up position under cover, of which the White House affords plenty. However, this is only a slight detraction from what is the pivotal sequence of the entire movie, and as an action sequence it is spectacular.
However, once the attack is over and the White House is in enemy hands, the movie quickly falls back into very familiar territory. As the scenes progress and the body count racks up, you can sit back and rhyme off virtually identical scenes in any of the Die Hard movies, Under Siege, Invasion USA, The Matrix or a dozen others. The scenes are handled with panache and style reminiscent of The Replacement Killers, but ultimately they bring nothing new to the genre. It has the requisite turncoat agent working for the villains for reasons that are barely touched on, a change of heart for reasons that are barely touched on, a combat decision given against direct reconnaissance intelligence that makes absolutely no sense, a super high-tech weapon that is perfectly able to shoot down supersonic anti-armour missiles but seems to have trouble with lumbering UH-60s, and an enemy who at the start are killing machines of ruthless efficiency but quickly degenerate into traditional "what's that noise, I'd better investigate ON MY OWN and WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE ELSE" redshirts. The final fight between Banning and $Main_Baddie$, while technically superb, is both disappointing in its brevity and predictable in outcome. It even has a McGuyver-esque last-second defusing, where the sole tension comes in wondering if the guy on the other end of the phone will actually give the disarming code fast enough for Banning to type into the command terminal.
The cast are largely wasted on the script. Gerard Butler gets to do very little other than look professional, show Man EmotionTM and kick ass, Aaron Eckhart square-jaws his way through the entire movie playing essentially the same character he played in Battle Los Angeles only in a suit, Angela Bassett and Morgan Freeman's characters are as bland as soggy tofu, and it is up to chief villain Kang (Rick Yune) to provide the requisite scenery-chewing, and though he gives it a good shot (did you see what I did there?), he's no Alan Rickman.
The epic battle scene is the high-point of the movie. Other than that, it is fairly standard action fare. Your brain will rarely (if ever) get out of neutral, but it's enjoyable in its mindlessness, and at least it doesn't take itself too seriously, a few scenes of Touching PatriotismTM aside.
6/10.
The premise is simple enough: the White House comes under attack from a North Korean terrorist group who take the President hostage, and it's up to troubled former Presidential guard King Leonidas Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to save the day, and in that respect it is a direct genetic descendent of Die Hard, a lone hero against hordes of ruthless enemies, with only a radio linking him to the outside world. In the same way that McClane was carrying the baggage of the split from Holly in Die Hard, here Banning carries the baggage of a split-second decision that saved the President's life but at the cost of the First Lady. A lot is made of this in the first third of the movie, with Banning having flashbacks to That NightTM and showing Man EmotionTM (but falling short of crying Man TearsTM), but mysteriously once the shooting starts (of which there is an awful lot), the PTSD vanishes in a puff of gunfire, never again to rear its ugly head.
Of course, there are dozens of other movies like it on the market, so it has to have something more. And what it has is one of the most impressively vicious battle scenes I have seen in any movie that isn't Saving Private Ryan. The attack on the White House is immense, a ten-minute orgy of destruction and devastation, with some ingenious tactics employed by the North Koreans (the villain du jour of modern US movies, replacing Islamic Jihadists or disgruntled former KGB agents) to breach the White House defences.
Of course, like many such action scenes, it depends not only on the villains being ruthless in the execution of their plans, but also in the beleagured Secret Service forces being as stupid as the plot requires, which is quite a bit. When coming under massed assault rifle and heavy machine gun fire, hordes of secret service personnel armed with pistols seem to just line up neatly on the steps of the White House to get mown down, rather than taking up position under cover, of which the White House affords plenty. However, this is only a slight detraction from what is the pivotal sequence of the entire movie, and as an action sequence it is spectacular.
However, once the attack is over and the White House is in enemy hands, the movie quickly falls back into very familiar territory. As the scenes progress and the body count racks up, you can sit back and rhyme off virtually identical scenes in any of the Die Hard movies, Under Siege, Invasion USA, The Matrix or a dozen others. The scenes are handled with panache and style reminiscent of The Replacement Killers, but ultimately they bring nothing new to the genre. It has the requisite turncoat agent working for the villains for reasons that are barely touched on, a change of heart for reasons that are barely touched on, a combat decision given against direct reconnaissance intelligence that makes absolutely no sense, a super high-tech weapon that is perfectly able to shoot down supersonic anti-armour missiles but seems to have trouble with lumbering UH-60s, and an enemy who at the start are killing machines of ruthless efficiency but quickly degenerate into traditional "what's that noise, I'd better investigate ON MY OWN and WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE ELSE" redshirts. The final fight between Banning and $Main_Baddie$, while technically superb, is both disappointing in its brevity and predictable in outcome. It even has a McGuyver-esque last-second defusing, where the sole tension comes in wondering if the guy on the other end of the phone will actually give the disarming code fast enough for Banning to type into the command terminal.
The cast are largely wasted on the script. Gerard Butler gets to do very little other than look professional, show Man EmotionTM and kick ass, Aaron Eckhart square-jaws his way through the entire movie playing essentially the same character he played in Battle Los Angeles only in a suit, Angela Bassett and Morgan Freeman's characters are as bland as soggy tofu, and it is up to chief villain Kang (Rick Yune) to provide the requisite scenery-chewing, and though he gives it a good shot (did you see what I did there?), he's no Alan Rickman.
The epic battle scene is the high-point of the movie. Other than that, it is fairly standard action fare. Your brain will rarely (if ever) get out of neutral, but it's enjoyable in its mindlessness, and at least it doesn't take itself too seriously, a few scenes of Touching PatriotismTM aside.
6/10.