Movie Review: "Olympus Has Fallen" (2013)

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Movie: "Olympus Has Fallen"
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Year: 2013
Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hours

When the White House comes under attack by North Korean terrorists posing as South Korean diplomats, it's up to disgraced secret service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to save the day. How was he disgraced? By saving the president and first son's life at the cost of saving the first lady in a horrible accident. The terrorists take the president and some of his cabinet hostage and make demands in exchange for the lives of the hostages.

This movie sucked. Hard.

You know the old line, "we don't negotiate with terrorists?" We honestly hope this is true after seeing this film. We hope our government doesn't fall apart at virtually the drop of a dime if the president was ever taken hostage. We know our government isn't always filled with the best and brightest, but those who run the government in this movie make Groucho Marx running Freedonia in "Duck Soup" look like a brilliant leader. Here, we watch the acting government give in to demand after demand of North Korean terrorists, including but not limited to removing our entire naval fleet off the coast of the Koreas and giving up the codes for our super secret nuclear missile machine. Seriously?!

This isn't the first time two movies of identical subject matter have come out within months of one another. One always takes itself more seriously than the other, and the one that doesn't usually has Morgan Freeman in it (see: "Deep Impact"). In the battle for overtaking the White House in 2013, "White House Down" wins, to us, though it is far from a race since "Olympus Has Fallen" sucks at nearly every turn in a cheap attempt to be a modern day "Die Hard" with 10 times the propaganda. It takes itself waaay too seriously and winds up being silly and ridiculous without even trying. This leaves the audiences shaking its heads and rolling their eyes because it comes off as so phony and overdone. "White House Down" KNOWS it's being ridiculous and still manages to let us have more fun watching it.

Antoine Fuqua is a great director and he has shown us he has what it takes to make an excellent film. This ain't it. A bad script and sub-par acting are its biggest downfalls, besides the whole ~*so serious*~ thing. Watching "Olympus Has Fallen" made us straight-up mad. There's no possible way life is really like this in Washington D.C., and if it is, well, we're more doomed than we thought. Despite a few cool action scenes, it's not enough to overcome the glaring stupidity of the "government" in this film.

My Rating: 3/10
BigJ's Rating: 2/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 47%
Do we recommend this movie: AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!