The Fallen Films
                                     
I don't know why but I just got it into my head to sit down and watch these films in basically one sitting. I have managed to badly strain my right leg, back and hip so sitting is about all I can do these days! I keep the reviews short and as painless as possible.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013) - 6.5





I thought it was time to finally catch up with the Fallen films and give my brain a rest. Not that it has been working overtime but just nice to sit back and watch the body count rise and does it rise in this one. I am sure someone has counted them up but I would have lost count pretty quickly once the action begins. I basically avoided these films because I have trouble seeing Gerard Butler as an action hero and honestly I still do. He is certainly serviceable but a lot of actors could have done the same here with perhaps a bit more style and personality. But all in all this was much better than I expected - sure another Die Hard movie but doing it in the White House is a nifty idea. A very nicely replicated White House I have to say. The special effects of DC are solid and you have to give some credit to director Anton Fuqua who has some good action films to his credit. This one is bloody and unrelenting - sort of how I like it. And super patriotic which you can like or not - but it is sort of expected in a film like this. By the way, it was kind of kind of strange how much the VP looks like Mike Pence considering this was 2013. The Koreans invade the White House with enough military hardware to take over a small country. But they didn't count on Mike Bannon, Secret Service man extraordinaire.

London Has Fallen (2016) - 6.0





Well, I was thinking about joining the Secret Service, but on second thought I will just become a human fireball shot from a cannon. It would be safer. If you thought the first Fallen film was silly, it is a somber reflection on modern ennui compared to this one. This has a degree of plot idiocy that even had me going, really? It is like London has been infiltrated by the entire Muslim Jihad - the cops, the Scots Guard, MI6 - they are everywhere - I was expecting the Queen to pull out a machine gun and start shooting heads of state. Literally, it feels like everyone in London is out to kill the President who is attending a funeral - except of course our man Mike Banning played with rusty nail charm by Gerard Butler again. But there is a ton of action, a huge kill count and lots of patriotic testosterone on display. Not sure if making Muslims the bad guys is really helpful in these times, but how many times can they be Russians. After saving the President twice and killing approximately a thousand bad guys, Banning really deserves a raise. Nice cast of Aaron Eckhart as the Prez, Morgan Freeman who has gone from Speaker in the last film to VP in this one, Angela Basset, Jack Earle Hayley and Robert Forster. Easy money for most of them. I wonder what the peoples of Germany, France, Japan, Canada and Italy thought when their leaders were killed?

Angel Has Fallen (2019) - 6.0




Did we really have to see Nick Nolte without a shirt? Most terrifying thing I have seen in years. Still mission accomplished. I got through all three Fallen films in 24 hours and am still mildly coherent. Not so sure about my hearing though. That was a loud movie and lots of things go bang. A lot of people go dead too. But I have an idea. Have a movie night at the White House and show Trump all three movies in a row. Maybe he will resign. Or never leave the WH again. Or blame the Democrats. Or the Ukrainians. For trying to kill the President. He confuses movies with life sometimes.


In the first film the Koreans tried to kill the President, in the second film the Muslims try to kill the President and now in the third film a corporation tries to kill the President. Finally some reality! Mike Banner (played by a surprisingly jowly Gerard Butler) is here to save the day again. You might think he was tired of saving the life of the President (Morgan Freeman who has now gone from Speaker to VP to Prez), but all those great government benefits I guess. What is strange is that he gets framed for trying to kill the President and no one believes his denial. This is the guy who singlehandedly saved the President twice and killed every single bad guy and they think he tried to assassinate the President? So a fairly stupid premise right off the bat. But you need some reason to kill all those people.

The three Fallen films are almost an anomaly of late - non-apologetic action films with more than a hint of jingoistic patriotism that feels out of place these days. They feel 1980's retro. The Reagan era. No cynicism, no humor, no sympathy for the bad guys - just kill them where they stand and move on. There clearly must be an audience for these films since this is the third one, but hard to see where it goes from here if there is to be a fourth. Butler is beginning to resemble a piece of cloth that the dog has been playing with. Maybe Nolte can save the President the next time. Just keep your shirt on.