London Has Fallen

Year: 2016
Genre: Action
Directed: Babak Najafi
Stars: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Alon Aboutboul, Waleed Zuaiter, Shivani Ghai, Radha Mitchell, Patrick Kennedy, Melissa Leo, Jackie Earle Haley
Production: Millennium Films

This movie has two Academy Award winners and two nominees, neither of which are our two leads. Keep that in mind while watching London Has Fallen, the sequel to one of the laziest rip-offs of the "Die Hard but in a (insert locale here)" cliche. This movie is Wrestle Mania, this movie is Donald Trump, this movie is a representation, an amalgam of everything that is coming at us that no one admits to wanting yet secretly want to watch the world burn.

And of course, not a single protestor

Since the events of Olympus Has Fallen (2013), our protagonist Mike Banning (Butler) has been added back on President Asher's (Eckhart) Secret Service detail and the two have never been closer. Banning considers retirement but puts his resignation on hold after the unexpected death of the British Prime Minister. The funeral becomes a must-attend event for the leaders of the free world thus the American President along with several other members of the well-to-do, arrive in London and inadvertently fall into a terrorist plot. Will the President and Banning be able to make it out of London alive? More importantly, will London survive them?

As with all sequels, this film is bigger, louder and so much dumber; which is saying a lot since the prequel pitted North Korea, a population of 24 million against the U.S. of A (319 million). There's furious gunfire, confusing fight sequences and more CGI explosions you can shake a stick at, yet all of it signifies nothing. There were many moments during the film I thought the whole thing was a ruse; a clandestine satire on America's most jingoistic tendencies. Yet with four different writers and relatively green director Babak Najafi behind the scenes, I doubt a cogent message like that would have occurred to them. No, this is just a movie about things going boom.

booom

The irony is there were so many people watching this movie who were completely unaware it was a sequel. They were simply intrigued by the trailer which featured an entire city reduced to rubble and a vaguely Muslim villain ominously croaking "imagine every western city descending into chaos." Yes, because why worry about the complexities of international relations, globalization, illegal weapons trafficking and religious zealotry when the solution to all those ills can be shoot the faceless brown people. The xenophobia in this film was palpable even when the occasional pasty-faced traitor came out the woodwork. Our impossibly lucky hero Banning seems to take joy in dispatching bad guys going so far as to torturing one while his brother listens frantically on the radio. He honestly seems more concerned with quenching his bloodlust than keeping the president safe, saving lives and/or trying to get home to his family safe.

God I look badass!

Even if we were to ignore the film's gleeful attitude towards psychopathic violence, and it's simplistic, jingoistic, borderline racist treatment of every nationality, it's still a badly constructed movie. The impossibly complicated terrorist plot is all but ignored in the face of an overly simplistic avoid capture narrative. To help guide audiences along, there are constant tile cards that pop up to give each minor character a name and a title and each location a plot on the globe. Why is this necessary? Why repeat information to the audience to the point where it becomes annoying? Could it possibly be that the creators of this 90's retread thought we are too stupid to figure anything out? What's more likely is they knew London Has Fallen isn't the kind of movie you watch in theaters. No London Has Fallen is the kind of movie you barely pay attention to while folding laundry at home.

On behalf of the American people, stop making us look bad!

This movie marks the second week in a row Gerard Butler has graced us with his presence on the big screen. Both times there has been a stunning lack of faith on his part in the intelligence of the movie-going population. I believe this is an inadvertent outgrowth of the man's personal brand; it's not on purpose. In an attempt to project a persona of strength, aggression and unbridled bad-assery Butler has become an unwitting poster child for American hubris. Ironic since he's Scottish.

Final Grade: F