The scenario is of the Die Hard variety with the action confined to a contained area, the bad guys implementing a plan that's more convoluted than it initially appears to be, and a traitor in the mix. The storyline is simple: It's up to Banning to help the president's young son escape from the White House then, when that is accomplished, he has to go back and try to get out the Commander in Chief. The sequence is well executed but this sort of thing isn't as fun as it was before 9/11. The special effects intensive sequence in which the White House falls also features a plane crashing into the Washington Monument and a fair amount of on-ground carnage as innocent bystanders are strafed by enemy fire. Gerard Butler, who has been slumming in a series of lifeless romantic comedies and other barely watchable productions, breathes a little life back into his career by playing Mike Banning, the lone secret service agent who's alive and active in the White House after a lightning-fast attack results in the president (Aaron Eckhart) and vice president being taken hostage. After all, the goal of the villains is to reunite the peninsula by allowing North Korea's army to sweep south without the United States to impede them. Olympus Has Fallen hedges its bets by describing the attackers as "Korean terrorists" rather than commandos associated with Kim Jong Un's government but it’s a none-too-subtle sleight of hand. The rationale behind the decision is solid: Hollywood films don't play in North Korea so there's no negative box office impact and there aren't a lot of pro-Korean pundits out there pounding the pulpit. These days, the North Koreans have become the go-to movie bad guys (belatedly taking over the spot occupied by the Soviets during the Cold War).
9/11 shifted it down considerably for this sort of motion picture. The suspension of disbelief bar isn't that difficult to clamber over. Although the film's real-world credibility is shaky, it works on its own terms. There's also an element of 24 to be found here, although Butler's Banning, unfettered by TV ratings, is considerably more homicidal than Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer.ĭespite being released in March, Olympus Has Fallen offers all the staples of a big summer movie: destruction on an epic scale, plenty of shoot-outs and battle sequences, and a kick-ass hero who, despite being battered and bloodied, never gives up. And, while Gerard Butler is no Bruce Willis, his Mike Banning is a better facsimile of John McClane than the guy Willis is pretending to play these days. There's irony to be found in the recognition that the best Die Hard to be released in 2013 isn't the franchise's official entry, A Good Day to Die Hard, but the White House-based copycat, Olympus Has Fallen.
0 kommentar(er)
