Outside of a few violent charms, Olympus Has Fallen isn’t very good. London Has Fallen, however, captures that mid-80s Cannon Films action template, warts and all—it’s ugly, mean, jingoistic, and reprehensible, and I adore the head-stabby carnage of it all. So Angel Has Fallen, the third film in Gerard Butler’s Mike Banning trilogy, has a lot to live up to IMO. While it’s hits a few action high points, it’s ultimately a mixed bag and a shrug.
So, London Has Fallen is mean and dumb and as chest-thumpingly numb-skulled and jingoistic a movie as has been produced in years. And I love it. (Though oddly, not a fan of the first film in the series, Olympus Has Fallen.) I’m not sure what to expect from the follow-up, Angel Has Fallen, but you’re damn right I’m excited. I might be the only one. (Not true, actually, I know at least one other person more pumped up than I am.) The first trailer has arrived and I’m here for it all day.
I hope you’re still thirsty as fuck, I know I am. I’m
generally in the minority on this one, but 2016’s London Has Fallen is awesome. Which is extra impressive, given that the predecessor,
Olympus Has Fallen, is such a shrug. But London
is a mean, nasty, jingoistic, stripped-down ‘80s style actioner. And bless
Millennium Films’ little heart, there’s going to be more, as the studio just okayed
Angel Has Fallen, which has a director and everything.
Sweeping biblical Epics have been Hollywood staples since
day one. Having fallen out of favor in recent years, the latest attempts haven’t
been great (the less said about Exodus: Gods and Kings the
better, yeesh), or tumble into heavy-handed religious fare (this year’s
Risen was much more watchable than most of it’s
Bible-thumping brethren, but it’s still only okay). But worry not, Timur
Bekmambetov, the guy who directed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire
Hunter, is here to attempt to revive the genre with yet another Ben-Hur
adaptation. And he’s bringing along the half-faced guy from Boardwalk
Empire and an actor best known for being really good at playing a
motion capture bonobo in the new Planet of the Apes
franchise.
If you totally forgot that Paramount is dropping a
big-budget remake of Ben-Hur, you’re not alone. And maybe it
should have stayed forgotten, because the studio just dropped our first
trailer for the wannabe biblical epic, and it’s…not great.
Back in 2013, Antoine Fuqua teamed up with Gerard Butler for
a gritty take on what would happen if the White House was attacked by
terrorists with Olympus Has Fallen—a few months later we got
the more humorous, bro-tastic take on the same story, with Channing Tatum’s
White House Down. Well, it wasn’t enough for the White House
to go down, and now we have the follow up, London HasFallen. Handed off to Snabba Cash 2 director Babak
Najafi, London Has Fallen is a ridiculous, direct-to-video-style
blast of full frontal action. If a DTV movie had the budget to mostly level one
of the major metropolises in the world, that’s what this is. So much better
than the first movie, this knows exactly what it is and what its audience wants,
and delivers with gusto and glee.
“Shit’s about to get stabby.” That sounds like the kind of
marketing campaign I would come up with, or at least how I would describe a
movie I was trying to get a friend to go see. London Has Fallen certainly appears to know its audience, which is basically me,
and this new NSFW TV spot is the pitch perfect way to get me to see your damn
movie.
