Spoilers are definitely coming. Sorry, I had to write the title like that because I didn't see "Olympus Has Fallen", the series pilot film of this series, but I did see "White House Down" and this was how the film felt to me as I was watching this. And it all does back to "Die Hard" anyway. But this film comes nowhere as good as "Die Hard", or "Die Hard 2" were. It doesn't match up to "Air Force One". Why? Because after the initial attack happens, the story and characters stop developing and just rehashed the same old clichés. It is even obvious who the inside trader is while all the other films I had mentioned (except "White House Down") keeps developing the story and characters as the film continues and thus keeps the audience engaged and held in suspense. I just wasn't kept guessing what was going to happen next the way a good action suspense film should do in this genre.
Here is the basic plot. A terrorist arms dealer wants to get revenge for a botched attempt to assassinate him but killed his daughter and family instead. Set he sets a trap by poisoning the Prime Minister of Great Britian and then plans to kill all the heads of state who attends the funeral. Once the attack happens, the US president and his trusty secret service agent must run a gauntlet in order to get the president to safety. That would have been fine enough because the action is good. The effects are spectacular. The cinematography was great. The director does compose great visuals. But the story runs through all the clichés including Shakespeare's famous one from Macbeth were a tender moment is shown for a character to raise the audience's sympathy for that character and then that character get brutally murdered. They even used the girl giving a flower to someone cliché that comes straight from the wedding scene in "The Guns Of Navarone". (Yes, I did think of that when I saw it and thought that something bad is going to happen to that lady.) But the worst part of the film is how they underutilized some strong actors that I haven't seen for while: Colin Salmon, Robert Forster, and Angela Bassett. Forster and Salmon were reduced to talking head cameos almost. They are better than that.
But if you like action without too much thinking, then this film is for you.
Here is the basic plot. A terrorist arms dealer wants to get revenge for a botched attempt to assassinate him but killed his daughter and family instead. Set he sets a trap by poisoning the Prime Minister of Great Britian and then plans to kill all the heads of state who attends the funeral. Once the attack happens, the US president and his trusty secret service agent must run a gauntlet in order to get the president to safety. That would have been fine enough because the action is good. The effects are spectacular. The cinematography was great. The director does compose great visuals. But the story runs through all the clichés including Shakespeare's famous one from Macbeth were a tender moment is shown for a character to raise the audience's sympathy for that character and then that character get brutally murdered. They even used the girl giving a flower to someone cliché that comes straight from the wedding scene in "The Guns Of Navarone". (Yes, I did think of that when I saw it and thought that something bad is going to happen to that lady.) But the worst part of the film is how they underutilized some strong actors that I haven't seen for while: Colin Salmon, Robert Forster, and Angela Bassett. Forster and Salmon were reduced to talking head cameos almost. They are better than that.
But if you like action without too much thinking, then this film is for you.