Olympus Has Fallen movie review (2013)
This film's title comes from the fictional Secret Service code ("Olympus") for the White House, which is being led by a very President Kennedy-esque Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart). But the true lead actor in this constantly gripping tale is Gerard Butler as Mike Banning, once the top presidential protecter for the Asher family, until a tragic event led him to be transferred to a pedestrian Secret Service job in the Treasury Department.
Fuqua and his writing team of Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt gave us a nice twist — a smart cinematic gift, really — as that forementioned "tragic event" (which I will not spoil by revealing) becomes a clever plot surprise. It's always good when something you KNOW is about to happen in a movie doesn't occur the way you think it will.
Of course, the thrust of "Olympus Has Fallen" centers on the actual kidnapping of the president and his top advisers, including the vice president and the secretary of defense. Though filmed over a year ago, "Olympus Has Fallen" benefits from recent international tensions, since the attack on the White House is masterminded by a group of North Korean terrorists.
As the very convincing assault on the heart of Washington, D.C., and the White House itself occurs, Banning finds himself again thrust into the central action and quickly becomes the sole hope of saving the president and preventing a potential nuclear disaster that would end American life as we know it.
While the storyline and dialogue are frequently predictable, "Olympus Has Fallen" succeeds largely due to Butler's believablity as a Secret Service agent. Banning has the physical skills and mental cunning that allows him to become a virtual one-man army against a phalanx of single-minded killers out to destroy America by cutting off its symbolic "head": the president himself.
The special effects and attention to detail in "Olympus Has Fallen" are superb. It truly looks like the destruction depicted onscreen has actually occurred. Considering that most of this mayhem was created by CGI and filmed on extensive special sets constructed in Louisiana, the impact is even more impressive.
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