London Has Fallen film critique- by What The Flick

Full-text transcript of the film review:

[00:00:01] With security at unprecedented levels, this isn’t just a gathering of the world’s most powerful leaders. It is the most protected event on Earth. Welcome to London. Mr. President Musharraf and other bugs the hell out of me. Everybody, welcome to what the flick on Matt, actually, that’s Christy Lemire, Alonzo Durante and Ben Mankiewicz. We are all here because we have a very, very important movie to talk about. The movie of the season, London has fallen. Let’s begin with the outrage that the movie getting a remake here is Olympus Has Fallen and not the far superior White House down hill. Right. Oh, who’s in that van? The news media portrayal in the White House, Dan, was outstanding. So, OK, but it was better. There was a Web question better. So we’ve made it. We’ve had a sequel to Olympus has Fallen. Its London has fallen. All the leaders of the Western world descend on London because the British prime minister has had a heart attack and died. But lo and behold, the terrorist, the evil dirty terrorists knew they were coming and staged an attack on all of these leaders simultaneously in London, setting up a scenario for Gerard Butler as president, Benjamin Asix, Gerard Butler, his Secret Service agent. Mike Banning. He’s Mike Mike. He’s Mike Bannon. He’s very American. Remember Aaron Aaron Eckhart, is the president then the best part of the movie? And so your Lord help us.

[00:01:40] There’s a president back and an hour. And Benjamin Harrison in between no evil and very solid. Like I said, eighteen eighty nine to 1893, cut to the chase. That is, by the way, that’s more interesting. So then for one hundred minutes, Gerard Butler goes like this around the wall and then he shoots bad guys while protecting the life of of Aaron Eckhart. Five of the world’s leaders are now dead. Stay with us. We’ll get you out of here. The American president. Is unaccounted for. To our friends in the West Bank, highway number six on the 10 list. What do you want? Your president, that’s not going to happen. Then every day from this moment forward. Will be on your head. Mark, we’re getting you out. Go, go, go. After three o’clock break, Rebecca. Oh, my God. So I walked out of this and I call my husband and I said, this movie is Donald Trump in film four. That’s right. More so even than the awesome Funny or Die movie that you and I go watch. That is just totally fucking distasteful. All brown people are bad. All Westerner’s are hapless victim. Isn’t this just you? You can either make a movie like the first Olympus has fallen where the terrorists are just bad terrorists. Bad down there in North Korea. But yeah they are. But I’m just saying. But there’s no real motivation there. They’re just evil and they want to take over and launch nukes or whatever.

[00:03:32] Or you can have a movie where the villains are doing terrible things but have at least sort of an underpinning of, well, here’s why they want revenge, which is what you get in this movie, because you have this arms dealer whose family is wiped out in a drone strike on his daughter’s wedding. But then you can’t give the villain a justification and then treat him like he’s just a random to take, which is what this movie does. Right. It tries to give him a justification, but then they instantly become random lunatics. That’s right. Now, look, the fact of the matter is the the violent extremism that kills people in the world that we read about today is perpetrated by Islamic extremists. We know that that’s true. I don’t think that Hollywood has to pretend that that’s not the case. That said, given that time right now where we got basketball teams with players from Latin American countries having the fans chant when it’s played at a predominantly white school, chanting, build a wall, build a wall. When that has happened. And it’s happened in a few a few times when we are getting stories like that, which was in the paper this week, the newspapers, I think comes every day. You read it, you open it up, got a lot of different stories and it look it up, you’ll enjoy one.

[00:04:41] They were popular in the 70s. The when we have that world, when we have Donald Trump winning, there just is no place for this movie. It’s not like what they you know, they didn’t know Donald Trump was this was happening and I got it. I’m not making I’m not being an apologist for the violence in the world. But, man, this movie cits wrong right now. Right. And it encourages that kind of behavior. And that’s what encourages it. It celebrates its 9/11 porn. And that’s right. That is similar to a certain candidate. It kind of panders to our worst. Totally right. And there’s elements of this movie that I kind of enjoyed, like the action is well staged. The dialogue is stupid with two. Oh, like it’s stupid. Yeah, right. The dialogue not only does it you know, you have some quip. The quip isn’t even clever. Right. They’re just the the lines, the little asides after some action sequence are so poorly written that they stick out even worse. You would be almost OK if they were at least clever. Yeah. But they’re just terribly done here. The reconceive actually. I’m sorry. I remember where I he comes out of a closet, the president walks out of a car. I wonder when you were going to come out of the closet. Right. It’s like one of you at least that can’t says that’s stupid.

[00:05:54] Like at least that’s the note for probably every dialogue in this movie. Like Love got all the time other times. And so there’s some action in this that I kind of enjoyed. I thought it was kind of over the top, but kind of feel guilty. You know, I’m with you on this when the movie is reprehensible in a lot of levels, but at least the action is kind of competent and you sort of, you know, who’s where. And the digital stuff doesn’t look too fakie. And, you know, some of that stuff is pulled off on a sheer like, let’s divorce it from the it’s, you know, political underpinnings. And just as an action sequence, it works. The thing about here’s what bugs me a lot about this. When you’ve got Angela Bassett returning as the head of the Secret Service, the second that gunshots, gunshots start flying, she’s all, oh, like, I’m sorry, I didn’t know one of these strange days or what’s love got to do with it. Like, Angela Bassett does not shrink back. She should be, like, shooting people in the face. And it’s just a waste of time to not have her shooting people in the theaters. You need the man to do that. Oh, yeah. We got a clip that out. Just you should be shooting people. It’s what makes a good movie. Angela Bassett shooting people in the face, a man who is none of his bullets miss.

[00:07:03] And yet the none of the bullets aimed at him hit. It’s like the worst kid to play war with when you’re nine, you know, because, like, he never, never gets tougher. Gun laws problematic gunfire coming his way. I if you go around the corner and go, oh, and this and banning as a character like literally like twist the knife, like he’s there’s a community, there’s a culture there at that moment. It’s like it’s Dirty Harry’s meaner, older, tougher brother who’s even more fascist, the Dirty Harry. You know, it’s true. There’s just and look at the there are a couple of drone strikes in it. One you mentioned at the beginning of the movie and similar to that knife twisting scene, which is done just to make somebody suffer, a person is going to die and they’re like, let’s torture him a little before he dies and then feel OK about that. And again, it’s a hideous person. It’s. Evil, criminal killing innocent people. I got it, but but we’re supposed to feel good about that. We got and we literally let’s twist the knife literally twisting that night. He wants to enjoy that. And then there’s another drone strike in the movie. And we are like, look out the window. It’s coming and it kills innocent people. And we’re like, who cares? It’s it is. But it’s like, yeah, we’re going to give it to him.

[00:08:15] And I got it. I think the world is complicated and there are bad people that that we need to think thoughtfully about how to rid ourselves of, whether that’s by killing them or rendering them ineffective and dangerous. That would be better. I know I’m a crazy liberal, but whatever that is, this movie celebrates our desire to get them. And and it is a not just that I get them and everyone, they know what Donald Trump said. It’s literally it’s get them and their their families and they’re all brown. The them are all brown. Well, there’s no mistaking it in this. Who the bad guys are no mistaking. They literally talk about them. And, you know, Angela Bassett at one point in the movie, she’s like, yeah, get them, you know, make them make them make the effort to pay. What can I say? It’s making suckers fat. They’re exactly to decent action sequences that stood out for me. There’s one where there’s a helicopter that’s going down and the shot begins inside the helicopter. And like as it’s circling and crashing, the shot comes outside the helicopter and like shows that crashed on the ground. That was pretty cool. And then there’s one thing that is meant to look like one long take where again, George Butler and his amazing accuracy with whatever weapon he has, you know, is like going down a long corridor and it’s a narrow street at night.

[00:09:24] Yeah. And they make it look like it’s all white. Somebody watched children of men, and that’s a good scene. Let’s do that. Other than that, I was just repulsed quite often. And the humor is not funny now. The quips are funny and no one bothers you. And I know no one likes the Pledge of Allegiance while being dragged by their hair in this one right way. I’m Melissa. Leo Fares very briefly. But I mean, I hope she’s getting paid. They also they pointlessly identify White House staff like, you know, the media like, you know, Dan Dan McKeon, chief of staff. It doesn’t matter. No one cares about referring back to these people there. There are people in this situation. I know you’re out. Our dialogue might as will be rhubarb. Rhubarb. It’s okay. I’ll bring that up for you alone. Except for the VP, who is Morgan Freeman and Robert Forster, one of the great, great character actors to ever live. It just, you know, but it’s always General McKinnon later you’re like, wait a minute. Is he is is he is he with the Joint Chiefs, General Jones or General McCain? You know, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Why are you identifying them as if it matters? I believe in Morgan Freeman like I hate this movie so much that I turned up the Morgan Freeman voice on my ways.

[00:10:31] Oh, I can’t hear him anymore. I know I didn’t say no. And I said, Thomas, the British guy. Now the British guy. I know London has fallen. What other season? Possibly Thomas, the British guy. So that’s that’s Dallas from the downtown area. Yeah. Or the tank engine. I believe there is no I’m driving a train now. I really. Where nothing else. Yeah. Another you. Yes. Everything stand this one. Make that much money that it deserves to have a sequel. This one it must, it must have. I don’t know but yeah this is so hot. But because I weep for our nation. If this is the right movie that gets everybody pumped up this weekend, I’m bummed. OK, so what are our numbers then. Then I like there. If it weren’t this time then I could give it just a normal bad number like a three. But it is this time and it matters. It’s a zero. I’d give it the less than that if the rules allowed me. OK, I’m going to go three and a half just for this or like this if there’s competent action. And so often these movies don’t even have that. OK, I’m saying one, I’ve clearly drunk the score. I give it a four star average is a two point one. Yeah. And it’s about twenty six percent on the tomato meter right now. You don’t see this terrible.