In Review: Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Ahh, got to feel bad for those pantomime Jihadists, looks like they may be out of a job. Like the pesky Germans and Ruskies before them, they've finally been usurped as the stock Hollywood villain. Evil North Koreans are on the scene now, and guess what! They're here to slam a big plane into the White House lawn.  

So it comes to pass in Olympus Has Fallen, when recently widowed president Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is taken hostage it's up to generic bodyguard Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to come to the rescue... But can he save the day?  

Olympus Has Fallen isn't completely terrible. It's maybe 70 or 80 percent terrible. The rest is just incredibly silly, totally implausible and very badly written.

Given his previous form with tense smart actioners, it boggles the mind why director Antoine Fuqua chooses to spend a year labouring over what is effectively a big dumb two hour anti-Korea propaganda video.  

Broad jingoistic  flag waving aside, the film also displays a complete lack of confidence in its audience, subtitling each scene with unnecessary location and character detail and peppering the dialogue with clunky exposition. Lazy.

Some credit to him, Fuqua brings skills to bare in a cloying but unexpected first act and a taut middle section, where a Die Hard-like cat and mouse chase around the crumbling White House gives the wasted Butler a chance to shine. But it's really not enough to redeem the film, especially given the rest of the action has to stand or fall on some truly terrible sub Atari visual effects. 

It's been said that when a film becomes so bad it can actually transcend its own flaws and become good again, and broadly speaking the same could be said of this. Just go into the film expecting a comedy and you might end up having a good laugh. 

1/5

*This review was originally written for York Vision