Olympus Has Fallen
I have to get this one complaint out of my system. This poster and the trailer make you think Morgan Freeman is our president...you know... because America does have a black President. But he is not the President, he is not even the Vice President, he is the Speaker of House. That is some miss leading BS.
Now...Ahhem...on to the review
Olympus Has Fallen
Cast and Crew
The most noticeable thing about this movie is the cast and crew involved. There is some serious talent involved in this film. Olympus Has Fallen is directed by Antoine Fuqua, the director of Training Day, Tears Under the Sun, and Shooter, all of witch are quite palatable movies. Our leading cast includes Gerard Butler who plays Mike Banning ( I want to call him John McClane because this should have been Die Hard 5). We also have Morgan Freeman, the temporary President who you will inevitably thing should have been the damn President in the first place...Because Aaron Eckhart aka President Benjamin Asher is by far the most spineless Commander and Chief in film. I mean ... he is the perfect President to be in power if we were in total peace and every county would settle disputes over some tea, biscuits , and a friendly game of checkers and instead of Nukes and guns we have laxer tag and water balloons. Yeaaaahhh wont happen any time in the recent future. The Supporting cast is fine too. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing and Rick Yune who played Kang, the villain, was a pretty strong casting choice as well.
Story
The story centers around John McClane, a tough witty no nonsense cop that is walks into a terrorist plot...oh wait... I mean the story revolves around Mike Banning, a tough, witty, no nonsense... ex special service agent who walks into a terrorist plot. Ok, no more Die Hard Jokes. Banning witnesses a full scale assault on Washington. The North Koreans walk right in through the front door and take the president. Mike then has to go into the White House and take back Olympus. From here on I implore you to suspend your disbelief ...A team with the power and skill to take out every breathing operative in the White House is about to face one man.and fail horribly.
Presentation
As I said earlier, you have to suspend your disbelief and you pretty much should have fun with it. The action sequences are top notch and that has everything to do with the direction of this film. Almost every fight scene is understandable. Banning is being purely stealthy and is not just walking around with an oozi annihilating the foes like most terrible action movies would do. The problem in the presentation is the screenplay. The script is pretty solid. Banning and Kang have witty dialogue between one another and the movie feels like an homage to the late and great 90s films of the past. However, there are details of the story that just are not explained well at all. The actions of the President are so offensive to me as an American. I know that there was a desire be a patriot and show this awesome American purity stereotype President. But of all the film Presidents President Asher takes the cake. First big issue I have is the details of Banning's first mission. They tell Banning that a certain threat would break the president. However that threat and the threats that follow actually DO break the president under pressure.
Throughout the movie, even when a person shows great resilience, Asher makes choices that lead to something with serious outcomes. The President from GI Joe Retaliation is more resilient than Asher. My final complaint is about the third act. After all of the intense build up, the last act of this movie is really bad. I did not like the ending at all.
The Rating
While I will say that the meal dffinitley needed a bit more seasoning before it could be a film classic. But this movie did succeed in entertaining me. I did not feel as throug my money was wasted after this trip to the movies but I can say that Olympus Has Fallen is...
Satisfying
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