5.5/10
No matter what screenwriters Creighton Rothenberger and
Katrin Benedikt chose to do, they were always going to have plot problems with Olympus
Has Fallen. Every time an
authority figure makes a decision or a military unit performs a specific
maneuver, most of the audience will second-guess it with comments like, “That
would never happen in real life,” or even the dreaded, “Bullshit!” When you’re writing about the White House and
the President of the United States, a location and individual everybody feels
familiar with, believability will inevitably be an issue.
The largest plot hole I noticed was the AC-130 gunship
flying lower over the National Mall mowing down pedestrians with its Gatling
guns while simultaneously shooting down two F-22 Raptors. Where did the bad guys get an AC-130? Some backstory is filled in on who the bad
guys are and what their motivation is, but as to how they acquired their
arsenal of cutting edge surface-to-air munitions and the USAF marked aircraft,
that is ignored.
President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is hosting the
South Korean Prime Minister at a time when tensions at the DMZ are escalating;
a situation which feels quite similar to today’s news. When all hell breaks loose outside, he is
swiftly escorted to the below ground command center and taken hostage along
with the rest of the country’s national security staff as the White House,
code-named Olympus, is taken over by extremely well armed and trained
combatants.
Thank goodness Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard
Butler) is working a desk job next door in the Treasury building. He used to be buddy-buddy with the President
and his family as their main bodyguard until the First Lady (Ashley Judd)
accidentally took a spill off an icy bridge in the film’s opening scene. No matter, Mike rushes into the White House
guns blazing and is now a one man Army against the bad guys.
Exactly who the bad guys are and what they are about is
merely an afterthought in the story. The
script devotes hardly any time at all to their grievances; that would take away
from hand-to-hand combat, next-generation weaponry, and throaty one-liners
about promises of revenge. Safe from it
all as an armchair quarterback is the Speaker of the House and now acting
President, Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). He
is surrounded by military brass and for some odd reason, the Director of the
Secret Service, Lynn Jacobs (Angela Bassett).
At a time of national crisis, who else would you expect to
sit right next to the President than the Secret Service Director? Her main job is to recite Banning’s resume
and assure the room that her man in the White House is all they need. This is a prime example of the movie’s main
fault; the writers crafted the script specifically for action, not logic. Decisions are made which are utterly
ridiculous, yet they advance the plot to ensure the principal characters end up
mono y mono at the end.
Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) ran with what he
was given though. Downtown Washington
D.C. realistically suffers through waves of destruction and the replica White
House looks worse than it probably did after the War of 1812. Also, Melissa Leo in a small role as the
Secretary of Defense has some noticeable fun with her limited time. The rest is paint by numbers. Gerard Butler and his bulging biceps pummel a
heavily armed militia, Morgan Freeman’s soothing voice keeps everyone calm, and
the crazy gadgets keep getting newer and more cutting edge.
There is nothing new in Olympus Has Fallen yet it will keep
you engaged. Do your best to keep the
second-guessing and plot hole bingo games to a minimum and you will find an
average shoot-em-up somewhere in there.
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