London Has Fallen Review

6 out of 10

Cast:

Gerard Butler as Mike Banning

Aaron Eckhart as Benjamin Asher

Michael Wildman as Agent Voight

Radha Mitchell as Leah Banning

Patrick Kennedy as MI5 Intel John Lancaster

Colin Salmon as Chief Hazard

Angela Bassett as Lynne Jacobs

Morgan Freeman as VP Trumbull

Deborah Grant as Doris

Andrew Pleavin as Agent Bronson

Nigel Whitmey as Bowman

Jackie Earle Haley as DC Mason

Robert Forster as General Edward Clegg

Melissa Leo as DS Ruth McMillan

Charlotte Riley as MI6 Jacquelin Marshall

Alon Aboutboul as Aamir Barkawi

Waleed Zuaiter as Kamran Barkawi

Adel Bencherif as Raza Mansoor

Directed by Babak Najafi

London Has Fallen Review:

If you liked Olympus Has Fallen, you’ll like London Has Fallen. Gerard Butler delivers brutal action and a terrorist-killing good time, but the hokey and anti-climactic finale ends it on a weak note.

Story:

This is the sequel to the 2013 film Olympus Has Fallen.

After the British Prime Minister unexpectedly dies, U.S. President Benjamin Asher plans to attend the funeral in London along with the rest of the world’s leaders. This is bad timing for Secret Service Agent Mike Banning as he has a new baby on the way and is planning on resigning. However, he sets aside his private issues to lead the visit to London.

As the leaders of Japan, Germany, France, and Italy converge for the funeral, terrorists led by Aamir Barkawi strike in a highly-coordinated attack.  Thanks to luck and good planning by Banning, President Asher avoids assassination. However, as London descends into chaos, his escape is thwarted. With terrorists hot on their trail, Banning and Asher find themselves on the run and unsure of whom they can trust as they try to get to safety.

London Has Fallen is rated R for strong violence and language throughout.

What Worked:

When Olympus Has Fallen hit in 2013, it was a fun little action flick with some brutal action scenes and an impressive supporting cast. London Has Fallen replicates a lot of what made the first film entertaining. As I watched it, I felt a lot like I was watching a cheesy ’80s action flick. You could have substituted Gerard Butler for Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme. If you’re a fan of those kinds of popcorn movies, London Has Fallen may fit the bill.

As mentioned, this sequel has a lot of the brutal fight scenes of the previous one. Butler knifes people repeatedly, runs over bad guys in a car, knifes people in the eye, blows them up, twists a knife in their side….you get the idea. One particular scene feels like a first-person shooter video game. Butler and a group of commandos fight their way bit by bit down a street swarming with bad guys. It’s a long single take that is creatively executed. If you like seeing terrorists killed in creative ways, you’ll like this.

Gerard Butler continues to be an entertaining action hero. He delivers cheesy one-liners with the best of them while convincingly dispatching the villains. In the screening I attended, women were cheering him on while men Ooohed and Ahhhed as he killed generic terrorists. Joining him are Aaron Eckhart as the President who kicks butt, Morgan Freeman in a smaller role as the Vice President, and Angela Basset as Lynne Jacobs. There are also small cameos by Jackie Earle Haley and Robert Forster.

London Has Fallen is obviously a cheesy action movie, but they do manage to create a credible terrorist attack scenario. If you’re going to kill a bunch of world leaders at once, a state funeral is a pretty good place to target. That realism grabs the attention of the audience, but by the end of the film whatever credibility they earned is thrown out of the window for movie physics, clichés, and invincible heroes. However, it’s forgivable due to Butler’s charisma and absolute devotion to selling the story.

What Didn’t Work:

If I had to guess, I would have said this film was written and directed by a gun-loving, patriotic, red-blooded redneck. (I live in Texas and I have family members who fit this description. I know what I speak of.) Butler practically wraps himself in the American flag in the finale while he literally punches terrorists. But then I heard that director Babak Najafi is Iranian and his anti-terrorist stance made a bit more sense  In fact, the portrayal of Gerard Butler as a comic book terrorist killer is, I imagine, what a lot of kids who grew up watching Arnie and Rambo think of when they imagine the United States. While it’s fun to think of London Has Fallen as American propaganda, it does make it feel a tad hokey. Whatever realism the film started with is tossed out the window in favor of the over-the-top, anti-terrorist tone of the finale. If they had dialed it back just a bit, it would have helped. That being said, this film knows its audience and will play well with anyone that wants to see a terrorist brutally killed on the big screen.

While the opening of the movie features the spectacular destruction of most of London’s major landmarks, the finale ends as more of a whimper.  There is simply a game of cat and mouse that doesn’t deliver the big promise of action that the rest of the film seems to promise. The inevitable conclusion is anti-climactic.

I also felt that almost every supporting cast member was wasted. Morgan Freeman is barely in it. Haley and Forster are glorified extras. And at one point, Butler introduces Charlotte Riley as MI6 Jacquelin Marshall. She starts out having the promise of being the female version of Gerard Butler’s character. However, that promise of action is never delivered. I think if a few more of the British characters had been played up more and given personality, it would have helped a lot. In fact, the British come across as rather incompetent in this film.

The Bottom Line:

If you’re looking for a good “guy movie” that is dumb fun or if you saw the first film and enjoyed it, then you’re a prime candidate to enjoy London Has Fallen. At the very least it’s worth checking out on TV when it eventually hits.