There's a difference between stupid and dumb. A stupid movie just takes your money and wastes your time. It's a business plan on a big screen. But a dumb movie can be triumphant, even transcendent in its joyful idiocy.
Olympus Has Fallen is such a film. It does Die Hard better than Die Hard and is the definition of a guilty pleasure. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and seemingly scripted by the Three Stooges, it is big and dumb and more fun than a barrel of Bruce Willises.
How great is it? When you leave, you actually like Gerard Butler again. All the stupid Romantic comedy, plus whatever the hell Chasing Mavericks was supposed to be, are forgiven. Traditionally, this degree of career rehabilitation could be achieved solely through absolution by Oprah.
Among the events that could never happen except in a dumb action thriller: A plane descends from the clouds above D.C. and proceeds to shoot down Air Force fighter jets, strafe stampeding citizens and obliterate computer-generated tourist attractions. The slow motion crumbling of the Washington Monument uncomfortably mirrors images from 9/11. Too soon? Not for Fuqua.
'll reveal no more about their evil plan, except that the head terrorist is a humorless fanatic played by Rick Yune, a former model who played a humorless fanatic in Die Another Day. That was probably good training for the part, though I doubt it prepared him for the scene where he opens up a caddish can of whoop-ass on Secretary of Defense Melissa Leo.
Olympus Has Fallen is such a film. It does Die Hard better than Die Hard and is the definition of a guilty pleasure. Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and seemingly scripted by the Three Stooges, it is big and dumb and more fun than a barrel of Bruce Willises.
How great is it? When you leave, you actually like Gerard Butler again. All the stupid Romantic comedy, plus whatever the hell Chasing Mavericks was supposed to be, are forgiven. Traditionally, this degree of career rehabilitation could be achieved solely through absolution by Oprah.
Among the events that could never happen except in a dumb action thriller: A plane descends from the clouds above D.C. and proceeds to shoot down Air Force fighter jets, strafe stampeding citizens and obliterate computer-generated tourist attractions. The slow motion crumbling of the Washington Monument uncomfortably mirrors images from 9/11. Too soon? Not for Fuqua.
'll reveal no more about their evil plan, except that the head terrorist is a humorless fanatic played by Rick Yune, a former model who played a humorless fanatic in Die Another Day. That was probably good training for the part, though I doubt it prepared him for the scene where he opens up a caddish can of whoop-ass on Secretary of Defense Melissa Leo.