London has Fallen: Team America but Shit
So since Angel has Fallen has just been released in cinemas I thought I'd do a review of it's predecessor; London Has Fallen.Ugh.
London has Fallen is a buddy comedy action movie starring a Scottishman and an American set in the Great Fire of London.
You know, it's perfectly fine to enjoy a stupid, over the top film where you can switch off and enjoy some mindless action. But when the film is so flawed. So bad that you can't even enjoy the action, then it sucks. Just like the Transformer movies.
That's what London has Fallen does.
The 'plot'
A bad guy called Barkawi gets blown up by a drone strike which destroys the whole village. Spoiler alert he survives, SOMEHOW. We meet Mike Branning; (Gerard Butler) the personal Secret Service agent assigned to protect the worst President in the world Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) who he saved in the first film. Mike wants to resign but then the British Prime Minister suddenly dies so they have to go there for the funeral, along with all the other world leaders. They get there then out of nowhere 90% of the Police, Paramedics and Palace Guards all start gunning everyone down, buildings blow up and all the world leaders are killed off one by one in some stupid Final Destination shit. But not the American President, because Gerard Butler is an immortal hero and saves him. A car chase ensues, then they're in a helicopter and that crashes and Angela Bassett dies but they somehow escape unscathed, then they're chased by fucking motorbikes, then they end up in the London Underground, then the President gets captured, then he's about to be executed via live stream and then Gerard Butler arrives in the nick of time to save the day. THE END.
Now as I said before, it's fine to enjoy mindless action films, I certainly do. Independence Day, some of the Fast and Furious films. But this. This fucking film, is trash. Olympus has Fallen was set in the White House, so they were constantly trapped and it gave the film an almost Die Hard-esque claustrophobic feel to it. I mean it wasn't good but at least it had that. But London has Fallen is set in THE WHOLE OF FUCKING LONDON. London is massive. And instead of hiding the President like a logical, sane personal bodyguard would do, Gerard Butler drags him all over London, from one bad guy hideout to the next.And there's fucking HUNDREDS of them I mean how did this not arouse ANY suspicion with the local authorities?! And how did so many of the terrorists manage to infiltrate the police and the Palace Guards? That would take years to infiltrate. Like, YEARS. You have to join the army and train first you can't just buy a guards outfit, walk up to the gate and be like, "Yeah I'm new here it's my first day". And how did no one notice this guy blatantly planting a fucking bomb? He just leaves it there in view of everyone.
Do we not do background checks here? The film makes all of the British police and government so inept, to make them look stupid and shit compared to Gerard Butlers' hero. It's as if he wrote the script and cast himself in the role because all of his dialogue is so ridiculous. There's a scene where he hands the President a glass of water then says this actual line, "I don't know about you, but I am thirsty as fuck". Then we watch him down the glass of water. WHAT THE FUCK.
Everything he says is just bizarre and unnecessary and adds absolutely nothing to the story. He's also a racist, bloodthirsty fucking psychopath. Just look at this shit.
And this line. This line is my favourite. After killing a terrorist, he searches his body and finds a gun and a few grenades, then says, "He's got more ammunition than the entire US army". THE ENTIRE US ARMY. Literally everything in this film is over the top.
As if this wasn't bad enough, the CGI, greenscreen, editing and cinematography is just dire for a film with a budget of $60m in 2016. You could literally make the same looking explosions in After Effects in an hour.
The car chase scene could have been enjoyable but the terrible camera work and the amount of cuts just distracted me and I didn't enjoy it at all.
Butler's character is supposed to be the hero but he's not. He's just a bloodthirsty psychopath who seems to forget that he's guarding the President and just runs around like he's in a video game, but he's playing the game on the easiest setting and has the AI difficulty on easy. He contradicts himself by saying at the beginning, "These guys are pros" then later on when he's about to enter into their base and gets told there's a hundred of them, he says, "They're gonna need more men". So now they're not pros and he can take A HUNDRED of them all by himself?
Aaron Eckhart is just, stupid, and Angela Bassett dies in a helicopter crash from an After Effects explosion and she doesn't get a lot of screen time. And how and why is Morgan Freeman attached to this does he owe Gerard Butler a favour or something?
Alright, time to wrap this review up. Overall, London has Fallen is basically an "America, fuck yeah! We're better than everybody" patriotic propaganda movie just like American Sniper was. It's dumb, xenophobic and poorly, POORLY made and relies on lots of conveniences to help move the story along. It's a shouty, overly violent CGI mess and I can't see the next installment being any better.
Fuck you movie.
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