Rated R for strong violence and language throughout.
Starring
Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Finley Jacobsen, Dylan McDermott, Rick
Yune, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Cole
Hauser, Phil Austin, James Ingersoll, Freddy Bosche, Lance Broadway,
Robert Forster, Ashley Judd.
Written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua.
GRADE: *** out of four stars
GOSPEL-DOCTRINE-O-METER: (3 out of four Moronis) There is a lot of heroism, redemption and selfless sacrifice seen in Olympus Has Fallen, albeit among a lot of graphic violence and over-the-top patriotism. You might leave the theater feeling better about America, but perhaps a little embarrassed at the silly, heavy-handed delivery of such messages. Also, we finally get to see a Mormon in the White House (okay, Aaron Eckhart isn't a practicing member of the LDS faith, but he did serve a mission).
It's
a sad state of affairs when you run out of politically-correct enemies
in movies. It used to be cool to vilify the Russians, then Arab
terrorists, then the Chinese. With the fluid nature of global/political
conflict, the list of acceptable bad guys is getting short (What's next?
The Canadians?). For example, the recent “Red Dawn” remake suffered
through a big, expensive re-shoot after Chinese film distributors
disapproved of the movie's original villains (The Chinese), forcing
producers to replace them with North Koreans. It is those same North
Koreans who are the play the antagonists in “Olympus Has Fallen,” the
story of a terrorist attack on The White House.
Gerard Butler
plays former secret service agent Mike Banning, working a boring desk
job at the Treasury Department following an unfortunate mishap involving
the president's family. It's several months after the tragic event when
a group of North Korean terrorists launch an attack on the White House.
Banning jumps into the battle, dodging a hail of bullets and explosions
until he gets inside the White House.
In the basement, the
terrorists, led by the evil Kang (Rick Yune) are holding the president
(Aaron Eckhart), the vice president (Phil Austin) the secretary of State
(Melissa Leo) and most of the president's staff hostage. Under such a
crisis, the de facto presidency falls to the speaker of the House of
Representatives Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), who consults with
intelligence and military leaders.
Meanwhile back inside the
White House, Banning turns out to be the only good guy left alive, as he
fights to ward off Kang's henchmen while establishing communication
with Trumbull and the rest of the people in charge. Banning is entrusted
by Trumbull to locate the president's son (Finley Jacobsen) before Kang
can capture him and threaten the boy's life to force the president into
divulging a secret code that will make all the country's nuclear
missiles explode inside their silos.
As the situation escalates,
Banning must get to the bunker before Kang can execute all the
president's staff and set off an apocalypse.
“Olympus Has Fallen”
is one of the most ridiculous action films ever made, and aside from
the Washington D.C. setting (actually shot in New Orleans), it is nearly
an exact copy of the original “Die Hard” (1988), right down to
the lone hero leaping to safety as a botched helicopter rescue goes
awry on the roof. The movie is full of implausible plot twists and silly
conveniences that are hard to take seriously, and inspire more laughter
than cheers. Speaking of cheers, “Olympus Has Fallen” is one long pep
rally for the good old U.S. of A., teetering on full-fledged jingoism,
like a live-action version of ”Team America: World Police.” The
patriotism seethes through with every macho-patriotic one-liner, adding
to the unintentional comedy. Despite the absurdity of the story and
script, “Olympus Has Fallen” is a lot of fun, if you can suspend belief
and have a good laugh at such patriotic extremes.
Olympus Has
Fallen’ is rated R for good reason, with plenty of salty language and an
abundance of gory violence, most of which comes in the form of dozens
of people taking gunshots to the head. Some of those scenes add to the
unintentional comedy, but be warned that it makes “Die Hard” seem like a
Disney Channel show in comparison.
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