Movie Review - Olympus Has Fallen

(Having just said I don't do new movie reviews I will now break my word.  Hey, it's my party, I'll review what I want to)

What an enormous pile of crap.

I need to begin by offering my sincerest apologies to the agents of the U.S. Secret Service.  These brave men and women put their lives on the line to protect our highest officials.  And they deserve better than this.  I assume this is #1 with a bullet (you should pardon the expression) on the Most Hated Movies of the Secret Service list.  I am truly sorry I wasted $15 on tickets and popcorn.  Don't make the same mistake.

Action movies come with plot holes and require a certain level of what is called "willing suspension of disbelief".  That's when you go along with things that are patently not possible for the purpose of entertainment.  But there is a limit on how much disbelief we should be asked to suspend.

"Olympus Has Fallen" uses up about 5 movies worth.

In a nutshell, Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) had been a member of the Presidential Protection Team (the A team for the Secret Service) but is removed after making a tough but correct call that results in the First Lady's (Ashley Judd) death.  A year and a half later while on desk duty at the Treasury Department he is thrust into the middle of a crisis when the White House is attacked and the President (Aaron Eckhart) is taken hostage. Working mostly on his own but with the usual incompetent assistance action heroes get from the bureaucrats in the government, intelligence and Armed Forces he saves the day.  Morgan Freeman kind of wanders through the role of Acting President while most of the rest of the Executive Branch is being held hostage as well.

If you think that was a spoiler you haven't seen many action movies.

Here's where things start to go down hill.  You have to be willing to swallow ALL of the following -

1. There are only 47 C-130 gun ships in the world. The Air Force owns all of them. Somehow the bad guys steal one, rig it with guns on BOTH sides (the C-130 classically only has guns on the port side) and get away without anyone noticing till it shows up headed for the nation's capital.
2. No one bothers to send out planes to investigate until this unidentified stolen military aircraft is actually OVER the nation's capital.  And when the fighter pilots are confronted with the guns appearing out of the sides of the plane they stare at them like hayseeds from Mayberry till they're shot down.
3. The bad guys manage to bring in at least 40 militia type terrorists from Korea, steal a top secret Army prototype weapon and mount high caliber machine guns on two garbage trucks WITHOUT ANYONE EVER NOTICING ANYTHING.  I'm assuming this movie also makes the Intelligence community's list of movies they hate.
4. When the assault on the White House (which in at least one fake newscast is consistently spelled "Whitehouse") takes place the combined skill of both the uniform branch and Protection team of the Secret Service manage to kill virtually none of the intruders.  The agents die in enormous numbers.  Even as large numbers of high caliber slugs come flying into the front of the Executive Mansion the agents just keep running out into the line of fire to die like lake flies in a bug zapper.  Meanwhile our hero pretty much kills people at will, on the run, snap shots, blind shots, you name it.
5. The President conveniently gives the terrorists their invitation into the bunker.  This violates Secret Service protocol (which is shouted out once) but at the moment when that protocol is most important NATURALLY they just chuck it over the side and invite all kinds of extra people into the most secure room in our country.
6. Curiously while the bad guys are supposed to be looking for the President's son no one ever seems to go to the Residence until they're hunting down the hero.
7. The North Koreans have inserted a deep cover mole into the security detail of the South Korean President.  That might fall within the range of "willing suspension of disbelief" until we discover that this person is in fact the most wanted terrorist in the world.  He has been active in planning several high visibility terrorist acts.  Um, no.  You can be one or the other but not both. 
8. A fail safe program designed to enable blowing up a nuclear missile once it has been launched curiously does NOT include a redundancy step actually requiring the missile to be in flight for it to work.

I have to stop.  But I keep thinking of one more thing.  I have to stop.  Please.  I can't keep on re-living the horror in my head.

 But hey, why let reality get in the way of a good fairy tale?  This list only scratches the surface of the farcical story elements this movie wants to drag the audience through.  I really expected that the people behind me were going to ask me to calm down because I kept throwing my hands into the air as each absurdity piled on  the previous.

The movie is far more realistically violent (without of course actually being realistic) than most and it enjoys showing lots of blood and violent death.  The script is generally lame (beyond the stuff above I mean) with trite, awkward dialogue.  It leaves an otherwise solid cast (Butler, Eckhart, Freeman, Judd, Dylan McDermott and Angela Bassett) with damn little to work with here.  It goes for the feel good patriotic ending but even that feels hollow.

For a "check your brain at the door" bit of action movie fun it barely qualifies.  If your brain slips into gear for even a moment you'll never be able to slip it back out again.  Strictly for your inner 12 year old boy.

Rating - ** NOT Impressed