Sometimes in life you need to enjoy personal guilty pleasures. Things that your friends and family believe are ridiculous and time consuming for no reason other than to waste away the day but you hold dear to, like an old one eye teddy bear than you'll never throw in to the bottomless pit of junk. It is deeply special. It gives you a unique personality. I can't help but love cheesy over the top action films from the 80's and 90's. They are brilliant. If I catch one on the box, I'll choose it over a soap opera or a Simon Cowell produced eyesore on ITV. I would rather engross in Jean Claude Van Damme tearing up cliched Eastern European bad guys with his pinky than Jean from Somerset giving her over produced sob story and her 5 minutes of fame. I am that type of man. From an artistic standpoint of film making, I fully accept Jean Claude Van Damme film's are shitty. The nonsensical plot to Jean's body made of granite. Cringeworthy dialogue written by a nine year old and them horrendous mullets your dad thought were sexy. But I love it. The entertainment value is unbeatable. Them were the days when the actors sold the film, an incredibly rare breed to find now. Stallone and Arnie in the 80's, Tom Cruise in the 90's. Film stars. Olympus Has Fallen took audiences by surprise three years ago, rediscovering the soul of a classic cheesy action film. The film far surpassed expectations, grossing double its $70 million budget and became one of the blockbusters of that year. Audiences enjoyed the film's crisp visuals, solid performances from Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart plus the well directed action sequences. A simplistic fun summer action film. In the laws of Hollywood though, a money maker must become a sequel regardless of any moral circumstances. Hey presto! Here's a sequel!
London Has Fallen brings back the original cast with Gerard Butler as a special agent/particular set of skills badass, deploying terminator accuracy with a gun, Aaron Eckhart as the damsel in distress President of the United States who needs rescuing more times than Lois Lane and Morgan Freeman.....being Morgan Freeman. The president is schedule to attend a high profile funeral in London along with Butler as his bodyguard, unaware that middle eastern terrorists have infiltrated the capital and intend to kill all the leaders present to gain revenge on a previous personal incident to the terrorist's leader. So now IT'S PERSONAL! If you do decide to go and see this film over the weekend, please be advised that London Has Fallen is absurd and ridiculous. The plot is cliched to the point that the film becomes a comedy in the final act, the script is dumber than dumb. The scriptwriters wrote the bad guy into the script as "Elderly Muslim bad guy with deep menacing accent". The conversation on the creation of the villain took five minutes, I guarantee it. London Has Fallen CGI discovered from the middle ages, unearthed by archaeologists in the movie archive. Richard Donner's Superman had better explosions. If there was ever a time to hire Michael Bay as explosions technician, this was it. The big sweeping shots of the London Skyline looked like they were animated by a group of friends who had played drinking games all night, woke up and realised they had to get the effects rendered and finished by lunchtime with a stinking hangover. They are horrific. Blatant and cheap. That's me putting on my professional critic hat, I've bashed down this film enough. The truth is when I sat back and forgot about the awful production value, I had a flashy gameshow host grin walking out of the theatre. Why? Because this film is blissfully entertaining!
If you love action films, you'll forgive this film for being naff. London Has Fallen offers edge of the seat action sequences that are at times edited seamlessly. Butler and Eckhart have the common sense to understand the core of the film and enjoy the silliness and chaos ensuing in front of our eyes. Their chemistry works perfectly and it's refreshing to see actors not taking the material seriously when necessary. Vintage one liners paying homage to classic action films, bring a few chuckles along the way. The film has all the ingredients to be a guilty pleasure. If you think this film is a complete waste of time, I wouldn't disagree with you. It is rubbish. But as a fan of action films, I can't help but smile. And I'm still smiling now!
5/10
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