Thursday, 18 April 2013

FILM: Olympus Has Fallen (dir: Antoine Fuqua, 2013)


"Is he alive?"
"Ask me a serious question."

Olympus Has Fallen is a full-on action thriller, essentially a big-screen version of the middle of 24 Season 7 (complete with on-screen time graphics), putting Washington firmly in the middle of the North/South Korea tension and extrapolating it to an almost convincing degree.  The action is big, loud and extremely violent (an amazing body count and number of head-kill-shots), and apart from some cheap-looking CGI, it is very well staged.  Gerard Butler (as the President's ex-bodyguard who gets caught up in the attack on the White House) and Aaron Eckhart (as the President) play this for all they can muster (Eckhart even does a great "Noooooooo!"), and a strong cast includes Morgan Freeman, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell and Rick Yuna all playing it very straight and serious.  At times, the terrorists' lack of humanity is uncomfortable to watch, and the endgame is very generic (complete with a countdown to be stopped), yet there are a number of wonderful one-liners and overall Olympus Has Fallen keeps up pace and interest and certainly entertains.

2 comments:

Dan O. said...

The movie has fun action, and that’s what it’s meant for. Nothing more, nothing less. Solid review.

Mr. P said...

Agreed! Thanks, Dan - good to have you back.