Olympus has Fallen - Movie Review

Movies out of the Cold War era often played off of viewers’ shared fear of the USSR by giving the enemy a Russian accent. After September 11^th, that same idea suddenly made the bad guy morph into a radical Muslim terrorist. Which brings up an interesting question: Might the next generation of villains come not from the Middle East, but from Korea? Olympus has Fallen is an action-packed, guts-and-gore movie directed by Antoine Fuqua about a North Korean terrorist attack on the White House and the hostage crisis that follows. As the Pentagon haphazardly pulls together a plan to help save the President, they are forced to rely on a former Secret Service agent to help stop the terrorists from not only murdering those trapped inside, but from releasing US nuclear bombs and obliterating the entire country.

This movie was rough to get through. After the first few opening scenes, the next 45 minutes or so are devoted to showing the terrorist attack itself in extreme detail. By the time the actual plot is revealed, the movie is half over and viewers have already become numb to watching a bunch of Asians with machine guns blowing the brains out of dead people. Had there been just a little bit more attention to the details, the movie might have at least picked up some believability; for example, the people reporting on the attack could have been at their news desks instead of standing right outside the White House lawn as the entire city of DC is being bombed. The movie picks up a little once the terrorists take their hostages and the Pentagon starts trying to negotiate the President’s release. The movie’s all-star cast takes over the majority of the action at this point (Gerard Butler plays the Secret Service agent responsible for rescuing the President and Morgan Freeman plays the Speaker of the House, who is made the acting commander-in-chief); but even then, the events that take place are somewhat predictable.

Olympus has Fallen is a Good vs. Evil movie that I gave a rating of 2 ½ creepy, knife-throwing, Korean-speaking boogey-men out of 5. The acting was great overall, and Gerard Butler did an excellent job playing the hero of the story. The rest was messed up.

-Caroline