Review of Olympus Has Fallen (2013) by Jack F — 07 Jan 2016

Every now and again in Hollywood, we come across a situation in which movies are released within the same year (sometimes within months of each other) that have identical or near-identical storylines. I'm not talking about similar themes or scenarios or movies of the same type; I mean movies for which you see a trailer and think to yourself, "Didn't this movie come out like two months ago?" For example, 1998 gave us two movies in a two-month span that dealt with a giant asteroid speeding towards Earth ("Deep Impact" and "Armageddon"). A year later, we got two movies within a month that centered around ordinary people visited by spirits who want their help ("The Sixth Sense" and "Stir of Echoes"). Fast forward to 2013, and in a three-month period, we got "Olympus Has Fallen" and "White House Down," two action films about a terrorist attack on the White House.

Given the obvious similarities between the two, I did a little binge-watching and watched them back-to-back. Given what had been previously said about the two movies and how they had been received (as well as gauging the talent both in front of and behind the camera), I went into the movies expecting to come away liking "Olympus Has Fallen" better than "White House Down." I'm shocked to report that I was wrong; way wrong, in fact. Not only did I enjoy "White House Down" a lot more, but I would actually recommend seeing it, whereas I would not with "Olympus Has Fallen." To be clear, both movies are insanely implausible and blatant rip-offs of "Die Hard." But the major difference is that "White House Down" seems to be aware of this, while "Olympus Has Fallen" plays it straight. The finished products actually end up quite different; one is stupid and fun, while the other is stupid and pretentious.

In "Olympus Has Fallen," Gerard Butler plays Mike Banning, a skilled Secret Service agent who is also close friends with President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). But after a traumatic event, Mike finds himself relegated to a desk job with the Treasury Department...but not for long. During a meeting with the South Korean prime minister, Asher suddenly finds the White House and the surrounding D.C. area under attack by North Korean militants, led by Kang (Rick Yune), who had passed himself as a South Korean ministerial aide. After the prolonged attack, Kang and his cohorts end up in the White House's bunker with Asher and members of his staff as hostages. Meanwhile, Banning, who'd run into the White House when the attack started to try and assist the Secret Service agents, finds himself the lone survivor, holed up in the place with nothing but a pistol and his wits. Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) is sworn in as acting President to try and manage the crisis.

Those are the main players, but the excellent supporting cast includes Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell, Robert Forster, Ashley Judd and Melissa Leo, and the director is Antoine Fuqua, who helmed "Training Day" and "Brooklyn's Finest." So given the immense talent on display here, how did the whole thing end up so bleeeeegh?

The writing and the tone are the main problems; everything just seems so rote. There's potential in a ludicrous premise such as this, but "Olympus Has Fallen" doesn't seem all that interested in exploiting it. It's a film at odds with itself; deep down, it must know how silly it is, but everything's played out in such a grim manner. It's nowhere near as intelligent as "Die Hard," the film it clearly wants to be, but damn it if it doesn't try to be.

Truthfully, it's really much closer to "Air Force One," the 1997 thriller about a group of terrorists who hijack the titular plane. That movie also played its premise mostly straight, but was still superior because (a) it was way more entertaining; (b) while still implausible, it seems like a far more realistic scenario than "Olympus Has Fallen;" and (c) it had the advantage of Gary Oldman, whose over-the-top, teeth-gnashing villain gave the occasional indication that the movie understood the absurdity of its proceedings. Kang, by contrast, is underwhelmingly bland. This guy is no Ivan Korshunov (or Hans Gruber, for that matter).

The fact that the villains are North Koreans feels like a blatant attempt to make the movie "timely," and further sinks it into its faux-serious hole. It's a movie about terrorists taking over the White House; when we're talking about a premise that wacky, why make the villains hail from a country that could currently be classified as an enemy of the U.S.? It'd be one thing if the film was nothing more than an action romp, a "popcorn movie." But due to the severity of the tone, too much of "Olympus Has Fallen" feels as if the movie wants the audience to believe this COULD happen, giving it some bizarre, jingoistic undertones.

I'd mentioned the writing being a problem, and this manifests most directly with the characters. Banning is a walking cliché, the kind of hero the film industry spits out over and over and over again. Gerard Butler is an actor that needs to show a bit more restraint in the roles he chooses, but he has shown on a few occasions that he's a fine actor ("RocknRolla" and "Law Abiding Citizen" are standouts). Here, however, he's all bravado and tough-guy posturing, spitting out threats to the villains like he walked in from the set of an '80's macho man movie. Aaron Eckhart is another fine actor, but there's absolutely nothing he can do with the role of President Asher. The man is a cypher; he's given no distinguishing characteristics...except that, well, he likes to box, I guess? And then there's Morgan Freeman, a man who is probably incapable of giving a bad performance, but he's somehow underused.

In fact, you can make that argument for much of the cast (the most egregious examples are Ashley Judd and Radha Mitchell, whose characters don't come close to reaching the levels of their talent). Considering that the diverse cast consists of two Oscar winners (Freeman and Leo) and two nominees (Bassett and Forster) and then you throw in the likes of Eckhart, Mitchell and Judd, I'd say that "Olympus Has Fallen" turns in one of the biggest wastes of a cast I've ever seen. That makes this all the more infurating.

On top of that, the movie's just not very entertaining. Nothing about its action scenes stands out, and for all the hype the movie tries to build towards the final confrontation between Banning and Kang, the final product is a let-down and incredibly anticlimactic.

Olympus had indeed fallen...and it can't get up.