Review of Olympus Has Fallen (2013) by Jason T — 04 Aug 2014

I was really with this movie for the first 4/5ths, but the last 20 minutes were such a letdown of almost epic proportions.

Olympus has Fallen tells the story of a terrorist takeover of the White House, in a very ridiculous but exciting sequence when about all of the secret service agents in America are killed in an over the top head-on attack. Only one agent manages to survive, now he needs to find a way to be a one man "Team America" and save the free world as we know it.

Everything about this movie screams that it was written in the early 90's for Steven Segal: the Under Siege Die Hard rip off feel, the hand to hand combat scenes, the complete lack of irony in any of the proceedings, one liners delivered with absolute conviction. I actually mean all of those things as compliments, I loved Under Siege back in the day.

Agent Banning (Gerard Butler) sneaks around the White House stabbing and choking, as well as rescuing the President's son from the clutches of the terrorists, and this is all well and good for about 90 minutes. But what the heck happens in the last 20? Any pretense of common sense is simply abandoned in too many ways to be listed here. All of that still could have been forgiven in the ending delivered the high voltage thrills the initial assault did. It doesn't. It was if the budget was blown and the filmmakers were forced to deliver an ending that felt like the climax of a mediocre episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger." It's really jarring how lame it is. Score: 6.