*Originally written March 4th, 2016*
Olympus Has Fallen was a surprise hit back in 2013 and one of two 'Die Hard in the White House' films, it was also the better of the two, and the best 'Die Hard' film of that year. It wasn't high art, it was a fun, trashy and violent '90s throwback that served its purpose.
I don't think anyone expected a sequel to happen, but lo and behold, 3 years later, London Has Fallen. It's more or less the same, but bigger and better than I expected. Again, not saying it was great, it just served that gap of high-budget violent action that seems to have died with the '90s.
This time the action moves to London after the death of the Prime Minister, bringing all the world leaders to the city for the funeral. But the whole thing is a trap set by an arms dealer looking for revenge, leaving Secret Service agent Mike Banning and the president on the run for safety on the streets of London.
Its absurd and insane, none of it makes sense if you think about it for more than 4 seconds. The plot is paper thin and the film embraces that, it just takes the excuse for action and runs with it.
Gerard Butler is reliable as ever as the arguably sociopathic and psychotic Secret Service agent Mike Banning. Honestly, this guy is our hero and he is one sadistic motherfucker, he seems to genuinely take pleasure from killing and torturing faceless Middle Eastern's. That said, he is a lot of fun in the role and has some solid one liners and chemistry with Aaron Eckhart's president. This are the sort of roles Butler is best at, not stuff like 'Gods of Egypt', which comes out next month in the UK and I will most likely end up seeing, but let's be honest, it looks garbage.
In terms of action, I think I might have preferred this to Olympus, the elaborate opening attack was pretty spectacular in terms of scale and destruction and it all runs at beautifully paced 90 minutes. They even did the whole long take thing with the last action scene, which everyone seems to do these days, it was impressive and far above what these films usually do, so I gotta give it that.
The weirdest thing about this sequel is that the events of the first film were never acknowledged. The president acts like this was the first time he's been around violence when Banning chokes a man in front of him, which was strange considering he saw people get executed right in front of him a few years before. Whatever, I guess this isn't really the film series for character development.
Urm yeah, London Has Fallen is pretty much what you would expect, a violent and fun action film that was stolen from the '90s at feels in the wrong era, but still just a blast. They leave the door open for a third too, and I wouldn't say no to more adventures of Mike Banning.
7/10 Dans
London Has Fallen is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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