Review of Olympus Has Fallen- by Mark Kermode

Full-text transcript of the review:

[00:00:00] But Olympus has fallen or die hard in the White House, as it should be called, North Koreans have taken over the White House. Inevitably, because they are now the go to guys for, you know, nonspecific moviegoers. Well, maybe this. Maybe that’s right. But, of course, that didn’t happen as a result of they just happened because anyone at any time Hollywood screenwriters are looking around for a bunch of people to blow, you know, in in Red Dawn, it was the Chinese. And then they realized they were going to lose the Chinese market. So they went through and turned they actually changed the nationality into a market that they weren’t going to sell films in anyway. So they’re still looking for it, you know, a rogue country, North Korea. But they say this is rogues from within a rogue country. It is very clearly said that they don’t anyway. They take over the White House, they kidnap the press. They now start to have they have their finger on the nuclear button. Their only hope is Gerard Butler, who’s a security man who some time ago failed to save the first lady. There was an accident in which he was a security guard and he failed. Now, we know this isn’t the plot spoiler. And certainly this happens at the very, very beginning.

[00:00:57] And we know that the first lady isn’t going to survive more than the first 10 minutes because there’s a sequence at the beginning in which her and the president are seen loving each other and being very much in love in a movie way which goes one of these people is going and you know that one of them is going to be killed. So it’s the other one. So anyway, what can they do? What can they possibly do? I know they form radio contact with Gerard Butler doing his very best Bruce Willis impersonation because he’s the only person what can save the world is a clip. Are there any survivors with you, sir? You have to have commandos roaming the hallways with enough explosives to take out an army. Looks like the doors and windows are regular C4 explosives. Who knows what other tricks they have up the sleeves and he keeps coming in is going to be ringing the front doorbell pretty loud. They shut the power down, lights off and out, and they close the air vents. I go to surveillance, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. Where’s Connor? We have no status of his location, but he’s presumed to still be inside while they’re looking for him. They have his photo. Sir, I’m here.

[00:02:03] Use me, OK, Benny, sit tight. We’ll get back with you when I’ll be right in saying that’s one of the more low key moments from the movie. Yeah. The funny thing is even listening that you get, you realize how much they’ve ripped off. You know, as the radio calls the superiors, many of whom keep telling him to stand down, stand down, he’s alone. But they said no, he’s the only person we’ve got to tell him to stand down. He’s got trouble with his relationship. At the beginning, we see his partner saying, oh, it’s terrible because you spend all your time at work and he promises he’s going to get home, honey, you know, he’s going to get. But then he’s then he’s in the thing and there’s all these terrorists happening. And it’s very difficult to tell what’s going on. Then the halfway through is, you know, whilst he’s prowling the corridors of the White House, he intercepts somebody who pretends to be friend. But he’s actually you got I have seen every single one of those scenes before. You also know that the White House is going terrible. Things are going to happen to the worst part because you’ve seen the trailer, but partly because Aaron Eckhart, he’s playing the president, looks a bit like Bill Pullman. So you think that’s the bit from Independence Day.

[00:02:53] Once the president has been kidnapped, Morgan Freeman is given the job of acting president. Somebody says you are now acting president. You go, well, that’s OK because he has acted the president before. He is president in deep impact and he’s God in Bruce Almighty. So, of course. So this is so and we were talking before about the thing with, you know, oblivion ticking, ticking the boxes. I mean, this is the most lazy box ticking exercise. It is just that bit from that that bit from that that bit from that is like somebody had somebody had a meeting in which they went, oh, no, let’s do die hard in the White House with a bit of Independence Day and Gerard Butler and someone went, Oh, that’ll be fine. I’m actually got 70 million bank do it. And they did. And the funny thing about it was, firstly, it doesn’t look like a film in which they spent seventy million dollars because some of the special effects do look a little bit hokey. But where diet people forget how great the first die hard was, people forget how just how well written it is. People forget how, you know, cowboys and Indians in the Towering Inferno, Cowboys and Indians in the Towering Inferno. Brilliant idea.

[00:03:48] Diehards in the White House. Not so brilliant idea. Well, but but also. And I haven’t seen it. But you kind of have. I kind of have. But also, if anyone has watched and numerous series of 24. Yeah. The White House appears to be the most vulnerable building in the whole of America. Yeah. It appears as though anyone can go in and either shoot the president, take the president hostage. I mean, it has been that whole thing about going into the White House and kidnapping the president. Senior Jack Bauer sorted that out years ago. I know. But Jack Bauer wasn’t up against Gerard Butler. It was it was one of those. Oh, they had been on the same side. Jack Bauer’s a good guy, he’s he’ll be on the same side he would find. That’s why I believe that the two of them in that case, the North Koreans would never even go in through the front door. That that was the fundamental problem. They didn’t have, Kiffer. I just think they all together a has done this. I don’t know. Well, the surprising thing was that of the week’s movies, this was the one I thought, you know what, I might actually really enjoy this. And then I found myself going, running, jumping ship. Well, where’s Bruce when you need him?