Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen - Dir. Antoine Fuqua (2013)

In 1997, a small town in the Pacific Northwest and the city of Los Angeles were threatened by the sudden eruption of volcanoes in Dante's Peak and Volcano. A year later, the Earth is nearly destroyed by two cataclysmic asteroids in Deep Impact and Armageddon. In 2013, the White House is in jeopardy not once, but twice. Roland Emmerich will direct Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx in White House Down, which will be released in June by Sony. Meanwhile, Millennium Films and FilmDistrict have beaten them to the punch with Olympus Has Fallen.

One snowy night, President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is on his way to a Christmas fundraiser when an accident causes his limo to swerve off a bridge. Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) saves the President's life, but is unable to save the First Lady (Ashley Judd). Over a year later, Banning is still haunted by his failure and exiled to a desk job at the Treasury Department. He races back into action when the nation's capital is attacked during a meeting between President Asher and the South Korean Prime Minister. In the film's most gripping and prolonged set piece, a cargo plane outfitted with Gatling guns literally causes monumental destruction. Not since Earth vs. the Flying Saucers has the Washington Monument suffered such damage. Garbage trucks doubling as armored vehicles roll up Pennsylvania Avenue while a blitzkrieg of armed assailants (disguised as tourists) breach the White House lawn killing dozens of security personnel and police responders. The ringleader is Kang (Rick Yune), a wanted terrorist who has infiltrated the South Korean government. He takes the President, V.P. (Phil Austin), Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo), and other key members of staff hostage inside an underground bunker. Of course, there's only one man who can save them…Mike Banning.

If the plot sounds familiar, it's because Olympus Has Fallen is yet another graduate from the school of Die Hard with the White House standing in for Nakatomi Plaza. The similarities are so prominent and frequent that screenwriters Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt (in their first credit) could be charged with outright plagiarism. Gerard Butler leaps off an exploding rooftop while a helicopter crashes behind him. He also taunts the villain over radio with tired one-liners ("Let's play a game of fuck off. You go first."). There's a scene where Banning bumps into one of the bad guys who pretends to be a frightened good guy. Banning's warnings against a foolhardy attempt at breaching the terrorists' defenses fall on deaf ears. Not to mention In the Line of Fire already did the Secret Service agent in search of redemption to greater effect.

Realizing the inherently silly nature of their film, the producers have loaded their supporting cast with actors who can effortlessly convey dramatic gravitas. The obligatory command center scenes feature Angela Bassett as the head of Secret Service and Morgan Freeman as the Speaker of the House now the acting president. Robert Forster portrays a hard-assed general who fills the role of Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson. Dylan McDermott makes a scenery chewing appearance as a turncoat agent though Rick Yune fails to lend anything memorable as the lead villain. Radha Mitchell gets a rather thankless role as Banning's worried wife. Aaron Eckhart is perfectly cast as the defiant authority figure and it's nice to see Gerard Butler in an action flick after doing so many terrible romantic comedies.

Antoine Fuqua is a solid action director, but aside from the opening salvo on D.C., there are not a lot of spectacular sequences. The majority of the film takes place inside a darkened White House, one that's so dark that you can hardly see any of the fights or shootouts. The darkness may have been to just hide the poor choreography or subpar CGI.

Olympus shamelessly exploits post-9/11 anxiety and xenophobia. Some viewers will be turned off at watching an airplane crash into a landmark as debris crushes people below it. The movie tries to have its cake and eat it too with terrorists that are clearly North Korean while straining to portray them as having no allegiance. These themes are only re-enforced by an overblown "America, Fuck Yeah," attitude, including one character defiantly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as they are dragged and beaten.

Olympus Has Fallen plays as mindless, red meat entertainment in spite of its queasy politics and thoroughly derivative script right down to a climatic countdown in massive, bold numbers. Although it's a blatant knockoff, Olympus is actually more enjoyable than the latest Die Hard sequel.

Rating: ** (*****)

A Good Day to Die Hard

A Good Day to Die Hard - Dir. John Moore (2013)

"You know what I hate about Americans? Everything. Especially cowboys."

A brief history about the Die Hard franchise. The first film was based on the 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp, which was a sequel to his 1966 book, The Detective. That was adapted into a movie starring Frank Sinatra as NYPD Detective Joe Leland. When Sinatra turned down the chance to make the sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever was altered into the standalone project that became Die Hard. Die Hard 2: Die Harder had a similar journey to the big screen as it was based on 58 Minutes, a completely unrelated novel by Walter Wager. Die Hard with a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard both began as spec scripts, Simon Says by Jonathan Hensleigh and WW3.com by David Marconi, before extensive rewrites. This makes A Good Day to Die Hard the first picture in the series to be envisioned from the start as a Die Hard movie. Yet, the fifth installment is merely Die Hard in name. It's as if a studio exec fished out an unproduced screenplay from the 80's, dusted it off, and made liberal use of cut and paste to turn it into the latest misadventure of John McClane (Bruce Willis).

This time around, McClane finds himself in Moscow to mend fences with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney). The junior McClane has been arrested for murder and is set to testify in the trial of political prisoner Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch). Komarov has incriminating evidence against a powerful government official who inadvertently caused the Chernobyl meltdown by siphoning off radioactive material to sell on the black market. No sooner does McClane arrive at the courthouse then a group of mercenaries trigger an explosion and go in guns blazing. As it turns out, Jack is an undercover CIA agent tasked with ensuring that Komarov lives long enough to finger the bad guy. Now, John and Jack must survive in a foreign land while hounded by relentless Russian killers.

Out of all the Die Hard films, A Good Day to Die Hard is the worst of the bunch. Though they may have bombed at the box office, Bruce Willis's former Planet Hollywood cohorts had far more enjoyable efforts with The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head. At least, Arnold had a very talented director looking to make a foothold in the U.S. (Kim Ji-woon) while Stallone recruited an old school master of action (Walter Hill). The fifth installment of Die Hard has fallen into the hands of the unremarkable John Moore whose credits include Max Payne and the atrocious remake of The Omen. Moore can't be bothered to hold the camera steady for more than a few seconds. A raucous car chase through the crowded streets is reduced to a jumbled mess as the audience never gets the opportunity to revel in the untold destruction reeked by the heroes and villains alike. At least, the chase goes by quickly enough that you don't have the time to think about all the innocent civilians McClane has killed or injured due to his reckless driving. The multitude of uninspired action sequences that follow are strung together by the loosest of narratives.

The script was penned by Skip Woods who has the dubious distinction of also writing Swordfish, Hitman, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The story possesses none of the emotional gravitas of the first Die Hard. Even the father-daughter relationship from Live Free or Die Hard was more satisfying than the utterly uninteresting interplay between father and son in Good Day. The dialogue is weak with characters barely uttering more than two sentences at a time. The banter is equally dull and McClane's one-liners don't have the punch as they did in the 80's. The closest thing to wit this movie has is a running joke where McClane berates everyone for ruining his vacation, which doesn't make any sense since he's not on vacation.

Meanwhile, a sleepy-eyed Bruce Willis goes through the motions until he can say, "Yippie-ki-yay," and cash his fat paycheck. The three-dimensional everyman that John McClane was in the original film has given way to a shotgun-toting Wile E. Coyote. The Die Hard series has never been without over-the-top stunts dating back to McClane leaping off an exploding roof with a fire hose tied around his waist. The last picture took it to new heights with McClane going one-on-one with a fighter jet. In Good Day, McClane and son leap from tall buildings and are shredded by gunfire, yet escape with only a few cuts and bruises. McClane literally becomes a cartoon character when the climax sees a CGI Bruce Willis falling in slow motion amidst digital fire and debris before landing safely in a conveniently located pool of water.

Although he was good in Spartacus:Blood and Sand and as Werner Herzog's right-hand man in Jack Reacher, Jai Courtney never makes an impression as Jack McClane. That has more to do with the role being severely underwritten than his acting abilities. He certainly doesn't make you salivate at the prospects of a Die Hard Jr. movie. Sebastian Koch, from the excellent Lives of Others, joins the ranks of Chow Yun-Fat and Michael Nyqvist as an international actor who comes to Hollywood just to play a generic foreign guy in an action movie. Good Day desperately needed an Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons due to a lack of noteworthy villains.

There is a slight amusement to be found by an unintentional political undercurrent. A Russian baddie mocks the McClanes by stating 1986 is over and Reagan is dead. Ironic because John McClane represented the blue-collar American values of the era. He was masculinity threatened by Japanese big business, feminism, opportunistic media, and ineffectual bureaucrats. His sidekick, Sgt. Al Powell, can only regain his manhood by drawing his revolver and blowing away the big, blonde terrorist. Here, we meet McClane as a solemn and solitary figure at a gun range where a portrait of Obama hangs in the corner. Next, he becomes the ugly American blundering through a situation he doesn't understand in another country with little regard for the collateral damage he causes.

The law of diminishing returns is in full effect. A Good Day to Die Hard is an absolute low point in the franchise history. A few recalls to the first Die Hard only succeed in exposing what a pale imitation unfolds before you. This is a painfully insipid chore that will have you longing for the days of Renny Harlin and Len Wiseman.

Rating: * ½ (*****)