London Has Fallen (2016)
★ ★
I have a theory for anyone that cares. See, I was enjoying this film for about an hour. Once again, the screenplay sets up a terrorist attack where the amount of manpower is total fantasy (at this point in our world) but it's effective and exciting to watch. A series of ambushes using a variety of weaponry and tactics to keep it fresh and relentless. Meanwhile, Gerard Butler is tossing off badass one-liners like a pro.
Then, the film changes. The action becomes more generic, repeating the same assault weapon charges into battle. Butler's dialogue goes from F.U. cool to dumb macho posturing.
This review is super accurate. As soon as the initial invasion is complete, every action sequences after that was boring.
This film sustains itself because it follows through on it's huge premise. As an exercise it's interesting to see what an attack on the White House might look like. It just is. And I didn't really scoff at what was presented to me here. What I saw felt basically plausible. And appropriately violent.
But I really hated the filmmaking. I mean, lets start with that score. I'm sitting there thinking, what year is it? We're still doing the sad trumpet thing and the generic military-esque themes? It just sets the wrong tone for me. It's voluntarily likening itself to a Bruckheimer type action film for some reason. It's such a safe choice, and in turn it's makes the film feel safe... like, don't worry, nobody important is going to get hurt. Just enjoy the explosions. Rip off The Bourne Supremacy or something with more urgency. But they really commit to trying to milk those patriotic feelings I guess. Seeing the flag fall away from the roof in slow motion is some major thing supposedly. I scoff at this film's sappy patriotism. Aaron Ekharts speech at the end of the film was embarrassing. Usually movie Presidents give good speeches... stuff you wish a real president would say. Ekhart managed to feel more insincere than a real politician even. It's probably the worst movie President speech I've ever heard.
Gerard Butler has to have a girlfriend in this movie for some reason. That just HAS to be established. Oh yea, I really care about this guys home life. Show me more! How about a scene where Gerard Butler is late for work and his girlfriend is concerned about how much he's working.
Gripping.
This film is obsessed with their relationship for some reason. Like, literally in the middle of the White House being INVADED the film cuts to the girlfriend who works in the hospital, and we see that it's chaos. There are bloody patients everywhere. There's a dude SCREAMING right beside her. And she's so selfish and unprofessional, and the movie is so stupid, that she pulls out her phone right at that moment and calls Gerard Butler to see if he's okay.
I'll be with you in a minute. But first I gotta be a cliche worried girlfriend.
You know how movies like to use real news anchors to act like they are reporting on the events of the film. This movie does that a lot and it sucks. I really hate when they use real news personalities in those scenes. Takes me out of the film every time. Also, they're saying exactly what you'd expect them to say, so why even show it? Because that's what they've seen other big spectacle movies do?
Robert Forester and Morgan Freeman are disappointingly boring in this. All the scenes in the command center are bad. Again, they should be ripping of Bourne Supremacy if they want to do "remote crisis management" correctly, not Armageddon.
There's a scene where American attack helicopters try and retake the white house, and the white house has all this anti aircraft weaponry on the roof and shoots at them. That could have been SUCH A COOL SCENE! The got these turrets firing a zillion shots an second, and missiles are going all over the place, and it's night time and so it's lighting up the sky. But the movie ruins it by being the worst shot scene in recent memory. The CGI is awful, but the way they shoot it is to just whiz the camera around all over the place. And then they needlessly intercut it with the Gerard Butler engaged in his 43rd shootout of the movie. It was very frustrating. I'm surprised they didn't choose that moment to also check in with Gerard Butler's girlfriend. "Honey are you okay?"
Antoine Fuqua had no vision for this project. Everything is just pulled from the generic toolbox. Joe Shmoe could make this movie.
That said, it was pretty watchable. And at some point became so bad it was getting good again.
When this Death Rate counter flashed on screen for a bit I laughed out loud.
It's such a dumb movie thing. If every nuke in the US went off it would be bad, I get it.
