Olympus Has Fallen (2013)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
When the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As the national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President and avert an even bigger disaster.
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41 films that influenced Olympus Has Fallen
What critics say influenced Olympus Has Fallen
The obvious reference point here is Die Hard , with Gerard Butler stepping awkwardly into Bruce Willis' shoes as Mike Banning, the man trying to single-handedly thwart a hostage situation from the inside.
And not since the original Die Hard (1988) have we seen a film that plays so much like, well, the original Die Hard, with so many plot points lifted and transcribed into the new setting that one could play a potentially lethal drinking game putting away shots every time you spot one (“I spy Robert Forster in the Paul Gleason role!,” “I spy the scene where overconfident military commandos try and fail to take back the building with badly misguided force!”).
Olympus Has Fallen follows the Die Hard formula right down to the letter, but with little of the style of that 1988 Bruce Willis classic.
There's irony to be found in the recognition that the best Die Hard to be released in 2013 isn't the franchise's official entry, A Good Day to Die Hard , but the White House-based copycat, Olympus Has Fallen.
There are some slick action sequences that bolster this flag-waving crowd-pleaser from director Antoine Fuqua ( Training Day ), yet the cookie-cutter script seems more content to rip-off ideas from Die Hard and other superior thrillers.
The movie is “Die Hard” in the White House, a combination of the violent and the cheesy which may nevertheless push a few buttons.
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."
Rick Yune also provides sufficient menace as the chief villain, while Aaron Eckhart clenches his jaw and channels the humanitarian decency of Bill Pullman's Independence Day President.
“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.
While the latter film is helmed by known White House-smasher Roland Emmerich (Independence Day; 2012), Olympus‘ director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day; King Arthur) doesn’t skimp on the action at all.
Moreover, like Roland Emmerich’s Clinton-era sci-fi spectacular “Independence Day” (1996), “Olympus Has Fallen,” which was directed by Antoine Fuqua, allows us to wave the flag and enjoy seeing the White House get shot up (and the Washington Monument get clipped a la “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”).
Not since Roland Emmerich detonated the White House with a blast of alien firepower in Independence Day (1996) has a film treated the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with such violent disdain as we see in Olympus Has Fallen.
In June, auds will see how Roland Emmerich, whose “ Independence Day ” gleefully made things go boom at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., handles the task today.
But Fuqua is no match for McTiernan in the latter's prime (when he also directed "Predator" and "The Hunt For Red October" over just a several year span) and thus we end up with lots of visceral mayhem but without the heart or much any semblance of decent comic relief.
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Think Under Siege or the first Die Hard with a bit of In the Line of Fire tossed in for good measure.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter), Olympus is the action movie equivalent of a Frankenstein monster assembled from other movies with the main template being Under Siege, plus a dollop of attitude from Die Hard and an overall blow-things-to-hell ambiance from almost any Michael Bay movie from the last decade.
For example, “Under Siege” was “Die Hard on a Boat.”
Recall Harrison Ford as a two-fisted commander in chief in “Air Force One,” or freshly sprung president/hostage Donald Pleasence grabbing an Uzi at the end of “Escape From New York.”
Skipping ahead, we come to Death Wish (1974), starring Charles Bronson as a New Yorker whose wife and daughter are raped (his wife dies; his daughter goes mad) and who becomes a vigilante, the lone hunter in an urban jungle where the animals rule.
The movie also features Robert Forster ("Jackie Brown") as General Edward Clegg.
And fair or not, I expected a lot more from a film boasting a cast of Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart (“ The Dark Knight ”), Morgan Freeman (“ The Dark Knight Rises ”), Angela Bassett (“Green Lantern”), Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”) and Robert Forster (“Jackie Brown”).
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“If you ever longed for the days when Under Siege 2: Dark Territory reigned supreme, then congratulations, because Olympus Has Fallen.”
However, when Olympus Has Fallen truly swan dives into the farcical is when it starts – sincerely – using dialogue and characterisations that feel like they’re lifted from Team America: World Police.
It's basically two hours of "America, Fuck Yeah!" — the Team America: World Police anthem that has unofficially been the motto of everything from the 2012 Summer Olympics to the Iraq War.
A dumber, louder, live action version of Team America: World Police in which North Korean terrorists (led by martial artist Rick Yune) shoot up the White House and take President Aaron Eckhart hostage, Olympus Has Fallen may, from a distance, seem eerily prescient.