London Has Fallen ** (2016, Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett) – Movie Review

Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart are back from Olympus Has Fallen (2013) as American Secret Service man Mike Banning and the US President he’s protecting in this surprise sequel to the surprise hit.

Banning’s thinking of retiring. But then he’s suddenly forced to think again. After the British Prime Minister dies, all the world leaders have to attend the funeral at little notice. Back comes Banning as the Prez’s number one feller because he’s the one and only bloke who understands the danger and would know the way out.

The funeral provides a field day for terrorists to launch an all-out attack on London – and on the world leaders. Who cares if any of them dies? All we’re concerned with is the survival of the Number One American.

Unfortunately director Babak Najafi’s 2016 sequel London Has Fallen has it in for poor dear old London, whose beauty spots and people are decimated in CGI, though the only thing the movie has on its mind is Banning’s bid to save President Benjamin Asher. Who cares about the body count or how many tourist spots are down as long as the US President can be saved? Oh, there goes Big Ben down, and now it’s Little Ben or Baby Ben, thanks to ingenious CGI. It’s going to be hard to tell the time now. But what’s happening to the President?

After the setup, it’s all CGI London falling action, then it’s one long, fast-paced, exciting extended cat and mouse chase, with the terrorists hot on the Asher’s trail, and Banning taking his hand through increasingly crazy situations to get him the hell out of the UK. Is there a pattern here in the movies? It seems like every time our American heroes stray off home territory, they’re bitten in the *ss by stereotypical caricature evil foreigners.

Of course some of us foreign types are peace-loving sophisticates who enjoy a quiet life in our towns, if we can. So here’s an easy answer. Why don’t you just stay safely at home guys, and let us foreign types not have to worry about Big Ben going down. I’m quite fond of Big Ben. Never gave a darn about the White House going down. Not fond of it at all.

This brain-in-neutral film has a lot of daft ideas and attitudes, but it is redeemed with a good action man performance by Butler, some laughs (some of them intentional) and some pretty good mindless action. I know it’s only a movie, but it does feel a little irresponsible and opportunist with the real-life threat of terrorism being so ever-present. It is at best uncomfortable to be watching this in a cinema in the centre of London.

As with the first movie, Gerard Butler has the whole movie virtually to himself, and he is ideal as the backup to Bruce Willis’s John McClane in Die Hard, credible in action while forming a neat little wise-cracking partnership with Eckhart, who, though bland, has just about enough to do not to fade into the background as a cypher.

An also returning Morgan Freeman has very little to do except chew the scenery ponderously as the Vice-President Trumbull. But he still has a lot more to do than Angela Bassett (Secret Service Director Lynn Jacobs), Melissa Leo (Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan), Robert Forster or Jackie Earle Haley, whose speaking roles are so small we can only conclude they were cut right back. Another submission in evidence of cutting is the short running time of around 90 minutes, when last time it was a two-hour epic.

In the unlikely event of a third episode, next up Earth Has Fallen maybe, as Mars attacks, possibly on Independence Day.

Costing $60,000,000, it was a hit, grossing $62,678,608 in the US and with a cumulative worldwide gross of $205,908,795, and a third episode duly arrived: Angel Has Fallen (2019).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/