Air Force One (1997)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
When Russian neo-nationalists hijack Air Force One, the world's most secure and extraordinary aircraft, the President is faced with a nearly impossible decision to give in to terrorist demands or sacrifice not only the country's dignity, but the lives of his wife and daughter.
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What critics compared Air Force One to
In addition to “Zero Dark Thirty,” you can compare “Olympus Has Fallen” to “Air Force One,” though on a much grander scale.
“Olympus Has Fallen” has a plot largely lifted from “Air Force One” (minus the plane), while also mixing in bits of “Independence Day” (minus the aliens) and “In the Line of Fire,” with a subplot about a Secret Service agent haunted by a past mistake and determined to successfully protect the president this time.
Unlike the similarly themed "Air Force One," Eckhart's President character isn't given much of a chance to do anything, while Morgan Freeman gets to be temporary Commander-in-Chief when things go amiss (and he's once again tasked with the pending end of the world, although this time it could be via nukes rather than a big interstellar rock headed this way).
As former special ops veteran Mike Banning, Butler makes his entrance as the tall, studly leader of the tall, studly Secret Service agents assigned to protect U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart in Harrison Ford’s “Air Force One” mode), first lady Margaret (Ashley Judd) and the first son Connor (Finley Jacobsen), a middle-school-aged kid who obviously hero-worships Mike.
In Air Force One, Harrison Ford made a powerfully convincing U.S. president; Aaron Eckhart, not so much.
Imagine grounding "Air Force One" and scaling it back to The White House, giving it the story of "Die Hard" with the laughable characters and ridiculous screenplay of the "Red Dawn" remake and sprinkling it with bits of "Law Abiding Citizen" and you get "Olympus Has Fallen."
White House Down is yet another take on the old Die Hard formula, with more than a few nods to the fun Air Force One (1997) and to Emmerich's own Independence Day (1996).
The Presidential action hero has evolved from Harrison Ford yelling "Get off my plane!" in "Air Force One" to Foxx kicking away from a bad guy's grasp with "Get your hands off my Jordans!"
Then the president of the United States fires a rocket launcher out the window of a car while terrorists are machine-gunning him—a vicious burlesque, perhaps, of Harrison Ford's President Bad-Ass back in Air Force One.
This isn’t Air Force One, with the president kicking much ass - President Sawyer has to put on his glasses before taking a shot at a bad guy.
Double down on a “Die Hard” and “Air Force One” marathon as this second take of D.C. destruction isn’t worth your financial endorsement.
“Non-Stop” is nothing but entertaining; a locked-room mystery combining elements of Agatha Christie and “Air Force One.” Neeson is Bill Marks, a United States Air Marshal suffering from one too many ailments.
This is more in line with Air Force One, although it's not as tightly wound as Wolfgang Petersen's 1997 thriller starring Harrison Ford as the U.S. President.
This film needed a more confident filmmaking hand, someone to replicate the sleekness Jan de Bont brought to “Speed” or Wolfgang Petersen provided in “Air Force One.”
In terms of danger-on-a-plane scenarios it’s superior to “Flightplan” and “Turbulence” but not as goofily entertaining as “Red Eye,” “Air Force One” or even “Con Air.”
Air Force One was Die Hard on a very specific plane — the president’s personal 747.
But the action-sequel "London Has Fallen" -- a breathless narrative mashup of "Die Hard" and "Air Force One" -- comes close.
As with 'Olympus,' 'London' is akin to an indelicate, more vicious riff on “Air Force One,” with the Commander-in-Chief relegated to a damsel in distress — Eckhart’s Asher does more fighting this time around, but he’s still ultimately in need of rescuing — and America’s finest military man, Banning, envisioned as a noble macho deity.
London Has Fallen, meanwhile, is more like The Warriors-meets-Air Force One.
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Also having Ford play POTUS is a brilliant shout out to “Air Force One” (1997)…
…one can’t help wishing they were watching Air Force One rather than another Marvel chapter…
…beyond a few Air Force One jokes…
It’s been 18 years since Harrison Ford last played a US President in Air Force One.
The supporting cast reminds me of 1990s blockbusters like Air Force One , consisting of a corps of character actors who animate the story even when the script by Scott Landes does not.
Unfortunately, even director Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot" 1981, "The Perfect Storm" 2000, and "Air Force One" 1997), along with screenwriter David Benioff, cannot wrestle Homer's 2,700-year-old, 15,693-line poem "The Iliad" down to the time frame of a feature-length film.
I don?t know if German-born director Petersen, whose more recent credits include Outbreak, Air Force One, and The Perfect Storm , and writer Benioff, who broke onto the scene two years ago with the Spike Lee-directed adaptation of his own novel 25th Hour, intended for this to be a tribute to those extremely expensive, showy, and badly acted classics of the 1960s like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, or whether it happened by accident.
His In the Line of Fire (1993) squared off Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich as hero and villain on equal footing, and Air Force One (1997) deftly combined the two: a hero and villain operating within a confined space.
Director Wolfgang Petersen, adept at heart-pounding action ( "The Perfect Storm," "Air Force One," "In the Line of Fire"), guides the battle scenes with a sure hand and a sharp eye for exciting visuals.
Before that happens, however, the adrenaline-charged German director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One) and an army of Hollywood techno-folk provide just about everything an old-fashioned, grand-scale epic is supposed to have.
For all but 10 minutes, Captain Phillips plays like a thriller in the tradition of such siege pictures as Air Force One and Panic Room.
One thing that director Paul Greengrass seems intent on exploring is that “Captain Phillips” by no means turns in to “Air Force One.” Tom Hanks as Captain Phillips doesn’t fight people, he doesn’t gain the ability to operate hand guns, and there isn’t a catchy one liners he spouts at his Samalian kidnappers.
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Harrison Ford also shows that his judgment in scripts is not permanently kaput after Air Force One and the awful Random Hearts .
Unlike most comic-book directors, he doesn’t stint on the killings — an attack on Air Force One has the body count of Air Force One in about 1/50th the time.