Olympus Can't Get Up

Because it's fallen and... yeah, okay. All right, it might just be me, but I kept thinking Die Hard in a White House. (Okay, originally McClane is supposed to be an everyman guy, but he's so not that now.)

This was... cartoony. In the opening scene, I thought 'that guy will be a bad guy'... and he was! This movie was not subtle in any way. There's a big airplane... which happens to have machine guns on movable turrent. But that's okay because the White House has pop up anti-attack missile launchers! (I have no idea if that is supposed to be a real this, but it just could not come across as believable.) And the Washington Monument gets smashed in a scene that won't evoke any memory at all (it was an inside job!). And there are so many scenes of people with machine guns shooting at Gerald Butler without hitting him, but he's taking out people with a handgun! And the plot is just so forced, the bad guys kill off the good guys because that's what the script needs to happen! No sign of any of them being competent or incompetent, it needs to happen or the movie can't continue. (That said, when you run out into the field of fire of a machine gun, you deserve to die.) And there's this huge plot point of needing to get codes, so the bad guys beat up the good guys to get them... but they space it out over hours... why? Why not get them straight away? You've set up that they can't get you if you put the codes in early, so that's not a problem. It's just spaced out because... the script demands there be these 'get codes' moment spaced out in the movie! And the Connor subplot is just so pointless, and fails to mean anything!

So, you might guess that I have some problems with this movie. I didn't have high expectations, but this movie was just so dumb. And heavy handed. There's an attack on the White House, and there are a lot of American flags so... yep, there's we go, a completely lack of subtle shot of a shot up American flag. Really? We needed that because we wouldn't get that America is trouble without that?

Oh, and this brings up another point that kept shouting in my head. These movies that always put the President in trouble... fine, let me say this... He is expendable! You have a whole government of people. You have protocol for people to take over if the President is unable to act. But no! He's the President. He's AMERICAN! WE NEED THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!! Just once (and this should be more than once), can't we get a 'yeah, okay, you got the president, but we are going to cut him out and carry on doing our stuff without him, so... have fun with that chap that doesn't have any actual power'. He's the guy you elected to run the country, but his physical existence is not a necessary condition for the continual existence of the country! He might know the details of a few deals, but he is replaceable. Especially when there are (usually) millions of other lives in the balance. But they aren't the American President, so who cares about them? This one person is worth getting so many other people killed to get back.

... right ... Okay, so Gerald Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman are in this movie... And could have been any other actor, the roles are so generic. Oh, one interesting point, the bad guys have females in their fighting force. The Americans? Only men of course. And there are explosions and fight scenes and...

This is an action movie you really need to switch off your brain to watch and enjoy. I couldn't, so might have laughed at some bits I wasn't supposed to. But this movie hasn't earned being taken seriously.

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