Review: "Olympus Has Fallen"

NOTE: I chose to suspend the prelude as I would be spoiling too much of the review. Here's the full review, enjoy!

The latest film from Shooter director Antoine Fuqua, Olympus Has Fallen chronicles a takeover of the White House by a group of North Korean terrorists. Starring Gerard Butler as an Army Ranger-turned Secret Service agent, he must retake the White House and rescue the recently widowed president, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), all while being guided by Speaker of the House Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). It may be one of the most patriotic films since last year's remake of Red Dawn, and director Fuqua takes a few cues from Michael Bay by adding such obvious symbolism as a torn American flag and awful character development not unlike that in Pearl Harbor, and he takes dialogue cues from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Two. Actually, a lot of it seems to be taken from Modern Warfare Two. From the White House storming (Several Missions in Act III of the game) to the fact that Gerard Butler's Secret Service is an ex-US Army Ranger (the American protagonists in Modern Warfare Two are Army Rangers), it seems hopelessly derivative. It also takes cues from Die Hard in the sense that Butler is trapped in a building with terrorists, Air Force One, and it is almost exactly like it, except Olympus Has Fallen takes place on land, and Superman due to the fact that Rick Yune's multinational terrorist villain, wanted across the world, was able to infiltrate the Prime Minister of South Korea's Security Detail by wearing a pair of glasses, not unlike Clark Kent (this was subtlety lampshaded by a minor character). The characters themselves fell flat: Gerard Butler has as much acting ability as a block of cold marble, uttering hammy lines ad nauseam and using guns in lieu of dialogue and character development: his biggest flaw is that he blames himself for the death of the First Lady (Ashley Judd), and it's resolved very poorly by the end of the film. Morgan Freeman seems to not be into the role, speaking in his normal, calming voice most of time and quietly yelling if the situation calls for it, like a calmer Al Powell, albeit in a higher position, and Eckhart suffered from a singular flaw and not being put into a very emotional role: his flaw is shared with Butler, and the character of the President seems like an objective in an arcade game. The President's son Connor fit the archetypal annoying spoiled movie child like a glove, sporting a mullet and showing surprisingly little emotion after his mother's death on an icy road from Camp David, summing it up with literally one sentence: "I hate Camp David." However, in my opinion, the worst character in the film was easily Rick Yune as Kang Yeonsak, multinational terrorist and proponent for Korean Reunification  While pleasantly timely, he also suffers from poorly-penned dialogue and derivative one-dimensionality. He essentially plays an Asian Hans Gruber who could only be more evil if he had a mustache to twirl: he roughs up Melissa Leo's Secretary of Defense and kills the Vice President on webcam, among other dastardly deeds. His master scheme is to cripple the United States by stealing the codes to disarm the nuclear weapons, as to destroy them in their silos, and you get the typical "I'm not going down without a fight" talk from the Americans, at which point we arrive at the "we'll hurt you if you don't" talk from the Korean terrorists. It's a lazy device worked in by the writers so they could minimize the amount of work they had to do. Another big issue were the special effects. I realize that the film could not be shot at Camp David or in Washington D.C., so there has to be some leeway given to them. However, the effects are simply painful. The drive on an icy road at the beginning looked hilariously fake, to the point where I thought I had seen better computer-generated graphics in a video game. The explosions were also very poorly done, looking as fake as the roads. The vehicles, such as the planes, could not even compare to the a great video game engine like Frostbite 2 or idTech 5. As far as computer screens and technology went, any depiction of it in this film can be used to conclusively prove that Hollywood doesn't get hacking. Now that I have thoroughly criticized the storyline, acting, and special effects, allow me to guide you through the absolute lunacy of this movie. There are a plethora of Greek references, mostly used as a handy way of code-naming objects, characters, and locations: the White House is Olympus, a large weapon is called Hydra, among many others. There are also questiones raised about the terrorists' tactic in invasion. We've already pointed out how ridiculous it was for a wanted terrorist to infiltrate a rival country's politics, but that is only the tip of the psychosis iceberg. They were able to infiltrate Washington airspace, already a difficult task, in a large AC-130 gunship, hijacked from a nearby air force base, judging by the markings on it. Not only does this behemoth enter the airspace, it is able to fire off shots and destroy several fighters before finally being taken down. After this, the inexplicably well-armed terrorists hold off the US Army before retreating into the White House. Keep in mind that the terrorists are armed with submachine guns and a few assault rifles, and are able to defeat trained and heavily armed soldiers in a short firefight. I can't believe they got as far as the plane. The most offensive moment is when Trumbull and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs decided to send in a Navy SEAL raid on the White House. This should work, and it would eliminate the terrorists quickly and effectively. Then the writers pull the ultimate deus ex machina: a minigun that looks like an eight-year old's math doodling appears and tears those Blackhawk helicopters to shreds, no "buts" about it. If they had this superweapon in the White House the entire movie, why only use it now and not during the initial assault? It's also never revealed why an experimental weapon was being kept in the White House, but this shows how crazy this movie is.

A friend of mine said that everyone has to take a movie for its genre: and he said that Olympus Has Fallen was to be judged as terrorist attack movie, and he thought that it was a good example of the genre. This is very true, every movie has to be judged by classics of the genre; I can't compare Dr. Strangelove to Citizen Kane, or Goodfellas to Toy Story. And as a subgenre of action, there are some great terrorist attack pieces, and it is the opinion of my friend that this movie is one of them. In the case of Olympus Has Fallen, I can't help but disagree, as the genre has so many better examples: Die Hard, Die Hard With A Vengeance, Air Force One, most James Bond films, even video games like Call of Duty that do the genre much more justice than this film.

Consensus: Olympus Has Fallen is a hopelessly derivative action flick that is filled to the brim with clichés, poor special effects, incomprehensible logic, and hammy dialogue that director Antoine Fuqua fails to infuse with anything special.

Rating: 1/5