Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Perfect star who has hopefully gotten away from making
romantic comedies, perfect director who knows how to craft
this type stuff and a perfect bad guy who is one half GQ model
and all sick bastard. Now… this isn't to say that
'Olympus has Fallen' is a perfect movie… oh good heavens no…
it's not even a perfect action movie, but it is perfectly
ridiculous, perfectly stupid and perfectly entertaining.
Our film begins with President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart)
and his top Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler)
doing a little sparring in the ring at Camp David. Once
Mike lays a nice one-two to the President's jaw, being as how
one probably shouldn't hit the prez in the face, I kind of
figured we were in for a different kind of movie. This
is just a warm up as the prez, his first lady Margaret (Ashley
Judd) and their son Connor (Finley Jacobson) are getting ready
to go to some fundraiser. The weather is frightful, the
roads are slick, and while one would think Cadillac One would
have some kind of traction control to account for this kind of
thing, there is a terrible accident. Banning makes a
call, it's the right call, but tragically because of his call,
a member of the first family won't make it on this night.
Fast forward eighteen or so months, Mike is off the Secret
Service detail, pushing papers at the treasury department, not
because he did anything wrong or even because The President is
upset with him, but because Mike reminds him of that awful
night. On this particular day though President Asher is
meeting with the Prime Minister of South Korea to discuss some
pressing North Korean type stuff… but there's trouble on the
way. Say like a giant C130 flying into our airspace mere
miles from the White House before we finally scramble some
jets to check it out. Could this really happen? Of
course not… and now the fun begins.
This jumbo jet with its super guns unloads on
the Washington D.C. faithful and the White House something
awful, but fortunately we were able to scurry the President
and his staff to the super secure bunker. The Prez,
being all concerned and stuff, ordered his people to allow the
Prime Minister and his security detail into the bunker as
well. It's not protocol, and only a President that's a
total idiot would allow this, but that President Asher is a
really nice guy. Guess what? The entire South
Korean diplomatic party from the chief of security to the limo
drivers… all North Korean evil operatives. Except the
Prime Minister himself. South Korea has a really crappy
I.D. process when it comes to hiring government
officials. This Axis of Evil is led by the crazy evil
Mr. Kang (Rick Yune) who has orchestrated an amazing attack on
American soil, is now in control of just about everything and
he really likes to shoot people in the head. Olympus has
fallen, pretty much every secret service agent on the planet
is dead, and our government is in the hands of a madman.
We will casually forget that the North Koreans couldn't even
fire off a decent missile a few years ago.
But not so fast! Mike Bannen saw all of this go down
from his window at the treasury and he has made his way to
white house, shooting people in the face along the way, and he
is inside and ready to cause a ruckus. Since the Prez
and the Vice are disabled right now, the presidential duties
now fall to the Speaker, who happens to be played by Morgan
Freeman who has some experience being a president in dark
situations, so you know our country is in good hands for the
next couple of hours. Regardless, Kang has a plan, it's
an evil plan, and he needs the President's son to complete
this evil plan. Bannen has a plan too. Shoot
people in the face and stab them in the brain. His plan
is awesome. Can one man do battle against three dozen
highly skilled, expertly trained terrorist and win? What
do you think?
Why does 'Olympus has Fallen' work even though it's stupid to
a fault. Antoine Fuqua directs for starters, and it
doesn't get much better than this guy when it comes to
crafting these kinds of movies. 'Olympus has Fallen'
goes and it goes, and just when it is about to slow down, it
goes some more. Then there's Gerard Butler as Bannen
playing a mix of Dirty Harry and John Rambo, with just a touch
of Josef Mengele, only with much more colorful language.
It also helps that this is one of the more violent movies
we've recently seen. If you had a brain in this movie,
not that any of the characters actually used theirs, but if
they had one the chances were it was going to be painting the
walls of the White House at some point. And Rick Yune as
Kang was just an awful person, like any decent bad guy should
be. Commie bastard. This was Jingoistic propaganda
done right!
Sometimes when we watch a movie like this you might be a
little concerned that something like this could really
happen. We take comfort in knowing that nothing in this
movie could really happen. Nothing. It is
completely unbelievable from its first frame to its
last. Plus there are a few gaping plot holes that Fuqua
just blows past because explaining how this or that could
happen would involve dialog and logic, and that's nothing that
this movie was shooting for.
As a side note, if the U.S. does have a triple code process to
self destruct the nukes we launch, one that has no override,
the five minute countdown to this self-destruct sequence
probably makes the self-destruct concept null and void.
Since these nukes will probably hit their targets before the
five minute countdown is up. Just saying is all.
'Olympus has Fallen'. If you're going to make an action
movie, don't make it a little stupid as that is
annoying. Make it perfectly stupid.
