Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (15)

D: Antoine Fuqua

FilmDistrict/Millennium (Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel & Mark Gill)

US 2013

120 mins

Action/Thriller

W: Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt

DP: Conrad W. Hall

Ed: John Refoua

Mus: Trevor Morris

Gerard Butler (Mike Banning), Aaron Eckhart (President Benjamin Asher), Morgan Freeman (Allan Trumbull), Angela Bassett (Lynne Jacobs), Rick Yune (Kang Yeonsak), Dylan McDermott (Dave Forbes)

It's Die Hard in the White House and about 20 years too late.

The movie opens with some ridiculously over-patriotic music even worse than Air Force One and then fades in to reveal Secret Service agent Gerard Butler & US President Aaron Eckhart having a little sparring match at Camp David, so we know not only that he's the President, but that he's a man not to be trifled with... Fast forward 18 months and Gerard Butler is demoted to a government desk job and married to a self-important, prissy bitch.

The white house falls under attack by Korean terrorists & really bad CGI and then it's formulaic bullshit time.

As you can tell, I didn't think too much of this movie. It's just cliche after cliche swimming in a big pool of mediocrity.

It's not terrible, I just enjoyed it much better in 1992 when it was called Under Siege (qv).

4/10

LONDON HAS FALLEN (15)

D: Babak Nafaji

Focus/Gramercy/Millennium/G-Base (Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Mark Gill, John Thompson, Matt O'Toole & Les Weldon)

US 2016

99 mins

Action/Thriller

W: Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Christian Gudegast & Chad St. John

DP: Ed Wild

Ed: Paul Martin Smith & Michael Duthie

Mus: Trevor Morris

Gerard Butler (Mike Banning), Aaron Eckhart (President Benjamin Asher), Morgan Freeman (Vice President Allan Trumbull), Alon Moni Aboutboul (Aamir Barkawi), Angela Bassett (Lynne Jacobs)

Dull sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, obviously set in London where the world leaders have gathered for the British Prime Minister's funeral only to find themselves attacked by a network of terrorists and terrible CGI.

Of course, the American president isn't in any danger because secret service agent Mike Banning has his back.

It's a telling sign when the director of the original film drops out because of concerns with the script and you can't blame Antoine Fuqua for doing so. His replacement, Babak Nafaji, probably does as good a job as he can with such a preposterous script, where superfluous characters are introduced without reason and big names star in bit-parts which are far beneath their talents. All of this could be forgiven if the action scenes were breathtaking, but they aren't. It also doesn't help that a complete mess has been made of London's geography.

3/10

ANGEL HAS FALLEN (12)

D: Ric Roman Waugh

Lionsgate/Millennium Media/G-Base (Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Matt O'Toole, John Thompson, Les Weldon & Yariv Lerner)

US 2019

121 mins

Action/Thriller

W: Robert Mark Kamen, Matt Cook & Ric Roman Waugh [based on characters created by Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt]

DP: Jules O'Loughlin

Ed: Gabriel Fleming

Mus: David Buckley

Gerard Butler (Mike Banning), Morgan Freeman (President Allan Turnbull), Danny Huston (Wade Jennings), Michael Landes (Sam Wilcox), Tim Blake Nelson (Vice President Martin Kirby), Nick Nolte (Clay Banning)

Gerard Butler is back as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, whilst Morgan Freeman is now the president, who Banning is served to protect.

Banning is double-crossed when the President is targeted in an attack, and goes on the run to clear his name and find those responsible, with a little help from his retired father (Nolte).

Predictable from the off, it borrows plots and themes from previous films as it goes through the regular motions. Personally, I don't think the first film of this series (Olympus Has Fallen) was good enough to warrant a sequel, so the fact that this has become a trilogy is really baffling for me, at least beyond the money-making reasons.

It's slightly better than London Has Fallen, but that really isn't saying much.

4/10