Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

If you live long enough you'll notice something funny about the way movies are made in Hollywood. Every once in a while, particularly during summer months when studios are rolling out their blockbuster hopefuls, you'll see a couple of movies released that seem to be mirror images of one-another. Not exactly the same, but similar enough that it seems like they must have some common ancestor.The reason why this happens is pretty straight forward and has to do with the unusual way the movie industry works. Often, the scripts for movies aren't developed in-house by the studios, but rather purchased from freelance writers who come up with an idea and then "pitch" it to multiple studios looking for a buyer.The process works for both the writers and the studios. There is a catch, however, which is that the person pitching relies upon a studio honoring an informal agreement not to use an idea without compensating the creator. The problem is that less scrupulous studio executives will have no problem passing on an idea and then blatantly copying it for their own movie. And even though everyone involved knows what's happening, it's pretty rare for anyone to actually sue over it, so it tends to keep happening.A famous example of this (famous in the relative sense) happened with the movies 'Deep Impact' and 'Armageddon'. The original author who pitched 'Deep Impact' watched a studio exec take copious notes during the pitch, pass on it, and then rush to create a script and get his ripped off version made in time to compete with 'Deep Impact', which was purchased by another studio.This usually happens when someone creates a script that captures the zeitgeist; that taps into an idea that just clicks with what people are talking and thinking about and it becomes the "must have" idea of the year.Unless you're an industry insider, it can be difficult to know which movie was the original concept and which was the ripoff, but generally the original idea will be more polished and well thought out. 'Armageddon', for example, famously had such huge plot holes that the cast was complaining about them during filming.'Olympus Has Fallen' (OHF) came out around the same time as 'White House Down' (WHD). Both movies feature an attack on the white house with an invading force, aided by a turncoat secret service agent, conquering the presidential security in an attempt to take him hostage. Both movies also have a protagonist who isn't secret service, but has some connection to the agency and ultimately proves that he deserves to be guarding the president. Both movies involve protecting a child caught in the crossfire. Both have failed attempts by special forces to re-take the building. Both involve explosions that destroy the building. Both movies involve forcing a change to foreign policy. And so on, you get the idea.I don't know which was the original, but I have a guess. The movies were made during the presidency of Barack Obama. After he was elected, there was a lot of speculation about whether he would be the subject of an assassination attempt. To African Americans Obama represented an almost unbelievable event: one of their own elected to the most powerful office in the nation. And there was a great deal of angst about losing him violently, the way a number of prominent black leaders had been lost in the past. I think that was the kernel that sparked the original screenplay; this clash of the old power base and the new one in the symbolic seat of national power.To my mind, WHD was the liberal take on the idea while OHF was the conservative counter. WHD featured a charismatic black president clearly modeled after Obama, right down to his attempts to quit smoking. The villains are white supremacist types backed by the old-guard military industrial complex who are fearful of the changes the president was making to foreign policy. And the protagonist is a millennial trying to prove he was worthy of the responsibility of protecting the president, perhaps an analogy for the young political activists that brought new methods of campaigning to Obama's election.OHF, by contrast, features a white male president with villains who were almost exclusively Asian, and rather than representing the supporters of the status quo they are actively looking to tear down American force abroad, suggesting that the bad guys can't stand how effective the traditional American foreign policy is. In other words, the message is "we are winning and they are getting desperate". Even the protagonist is more representative of the target audience: a middle-aged man with a penchant for defiantly vowing to destroy the villains and defend our way of life.Neither movie is particularly deep; it's mostly about the action sequences. In other words, these are popcorn movies. But I do think it's interesting how two such similar base ideas can manifest such different messages. While WHD is about the (then) rising tide of the progressive political movement and the supposed fear within groups that traditionally held power in the US, OHF is all about the traditional conservative message of Jingoism and the need to protect ourselves from the parts of the world that don't share our values.Whatever the case may be, OHF was successful enough to green light a second film 'London Has Fallen', which is a continuation of the themes, only with (primarily) middle-eastern villains instead of Asian ones, and an upcoming 'Angel Has Fallen'. Personally, I thought OHF was decent but unspectacular. I enjoyed it enough when I saw it on HBO or Netflix or wherever, but I probably wouldn't pay to see it in the theater.

Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckartt are superb in"Olympus Has Fallen."Let me start by saying that this is a good action movie. It reminds me of the action movies from the '80's and '90's, with it's adrenaline pumping suspenseful opening to it's nail biting finish, this movie delivers.This may contain some spoilers.Mike banning is a secret service agent, part of the United States President's detail.But after Mike fails to save a loved one,he is demoted to desk duty. But now that's all about to change, one year later the white house is soon under attack by terrorist, killing all the service agents and it's up to Mike to save the day and take out the trash.The action scenes are spectacular, and it's nice to see an action movie with some character development.Morgan Freeman was good as Vice President Trumble, all his scenes are mostly in the Pentagon, but he was great.Aaron Eckartt was also good as the President, he didn't do very much because he was tied up for most of the movie but he was still good.Gerard Butler is very good as Mike Banning the hero of the film, it's great to see him kick ass in this, all his fight scenes and funny one liners were spot on.Ashley Judd has a very small roll in this as the President's wife but even though her part was small I liked her scenes.This film is directed well by Antwone Fuqua probably his best next to The Equalizer, He just did a damn good job.Rick Yune is great as the main baddie of the film, I haven't seen him in very much but this by far is his best work yet.Overall I very much enjoyed it, and I own it on DVD, and it's sequel, London Has Fallen is just as awesome.If your an action movie fan I think you'll probably like it. Definitely give this one a look, you won't be disappointed.I give it a 7/10 Ii's one cool action flick.

I decided to check out Olympus Has Fallen again, i never watched it properly before and i never gave it a fair chance, there are some scenes that are too dark and just too much and those are the scenes where there is the threat of torturing people, what the hell is wrong with this director?? This is just supposed to be a blockbuster action flick, not Law Abiding Citizen part 2.Watching Olympus Has Fallen again has me appreciate how they did the action scenes, they put those scenes together perfectly.Even though the screenplay is 85% the same as White House Down, the latter is still a better movie overall. Olympus Has Fallen is dark visually and has that gritty vibe, if you like that then you'll love this movie, but gritty vibes should be in certain types of movies like crime dramas, not action flicks.I used to love the film score of this movie, but whether iv'e listened to it too much and got fed up of it or whether iv'e just outgrown it - i don't know, all i know about that is that the best part of the score is "The Full Package/Snowy Car Talk".Great performances, the bad guys are scarier than the bad guys from White House Down, but bad guy characters should not be the reason to decide how good a film is, everything needs to be taken into consideration.

'Olympus Has Fallen' is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but judging from the reviews was honestly expecting much worse. Even for taking it for it is and aimed to do, it could have been much better.This said, it is much better than its successor 'London Has Fallen'...now that was an awful film, with no obvious redeeming values, and one of the worst films from that year. 'Olympus Has Fallen' at least tried to be fun and has much better action scenes (such as the audaciously staged terrorist attack, all of the action in 'London Has Fallen' is routine at best).It also looks better, apart from some excessive shaky cam in places and the special effects are far from brilliant, in fact cartoonish and fake, but there is some atmospheric grit and the film is well shot instead of mostly looking like SyFy/Asylum fodder. With the exceptions of an annoying Melissa Leo and Aaron Eckhart phoning it in, the acting is not bad here with dignified Angela Basset and particularly Morgan Freeman giving the best performances. Gerard Butler does struggle with some of his one-liners, which honestly are not that good (pretty pithy actually) in the first place, but is a very capable action hero and charismatic lead. Rick Yune does his best, but his character is forgettable and very sketchy, like all the characters here. The direction at least has some tension.However, 'Olympus Has Fallen' goes for the fast, big and loud approach, sometimes that's not a bad thing but it didn't come off well here. The pacing is rather rushed often, while also losing momentum in crucial parts too, while the big and loud like its sequel is so constant there is little room to breathe and it becomes nauseating and repetitive in every way possible.Much of the script consists of pithy one-liners and cheesy quips that feel like clumsy attempts at humour, while also making little to no attempt at giving much personality or development to the characters (leaving the actors to do all the leg work and they mostly do credibly in that respect). The story is certainly not as intelligence insulting as that of 'London Has Fallen', but while it tries not to be too derivative of 'Die Hard' it is not that original and it outside of the action lacks suspense and proper excitement which are mistaken for lapses in logic and lack of suspense.All in all, not great, instead a mediocre film, but not as awful as expected. Even with its numerous flaws, if asked which is better between 'Olympus Has Fallen' and 'London Has Fallen' the answer is clear. 4/10 Bethany Cox