Olympus Has Fallen

How do you combine the ultra-pathos of shot-up flags in the glow of evening twilight and a "down to earth" thriller about a highly trained bulldozer that someone hibernated during Reagan's time? You can’t. That's what it's all about. I enjoyed the references to similar 90s films (a tumultuous steady cam, president family guy and a soundtrack on the edge of long strings and pompous walls of breaths). What I really don't like is the total lack of overview - not only in the ode to US sovereignty and the flawlessness of its watch dogs (Butlers), but especially in the image of the North Korean enemy, who is so boringly truncated to a hateful and brutal core that the fight with them lacks anything emotional, and the enemy is completely uninteresting. Alternating solid action with theatrical (and de facto completely dehumanized) speeches soon ceases to entertain. A comparison with Die Hard is out of the question - this film looks much more outdated at its core - and where it tries to look more modern, it clashes with its simplicity. It's a pity, I was really rooting for it and had a great time for the first half hour. [50%] (08/04/2013)

Pleasant, funny, fully of great lines and a lot of innocent passers-by die. Kim has nothing to be ashamed about on his American PR campaign. Just cut the ending. ;) Butler’s show is a soothing band aid for McClane’s recent failure. He swears like a trooper and super smooth bitch-slapping insubordination. The initial attack has outrageous drive, even taking out the Washington Dick, not to mention demolishing half of the house (including Lincoln’s bedroom) and acre upon acre of fine lawns. The tricks are maybe a little too obviously digital, but for relatively little investment we get a good show, the actors do their work and, even though the screenplay is thoroughbred B-movie, it soothes the soul. The music is also pleasantly patriotic. Simply a Seagal-like movie, crossed with 24, featuring Leonidas. Tough luck if you want anything more. (17/04/2013)

Republican agitprop for pure American values, and the willingness to confront the problem head-on and tackle everything with a straight face. It’s a mistake to see it in the opposite vein of the movie theater premieres, as Emmerich's strumming of the "democratic" string created more thematic self-irony, bringing expectations down to zero. Fuqua irritates the audience's receptors only with his impressive body count, his willingness to shoot anyone in the head (even a woman), and he only improves the Butler machine’s skill in terms of the number of headshots. The rest of the time, it sort of wanders the darkened corridors of the White House, preferring to keep the protagonists silent because the script doesn't throw anything too miraculous at them. I can't think of which twenty minutes of the plot I would sacrifice in favor of better compactness, but, on the other hand, I place the quarter of an hour with the cast of Olympus Has Fallen on the action pedestal of the best there is to see at the moment. 2 and a ½. (31/10/2014)

For all patriotic Americans who revel in melodrama, this film is a must-watch. Personally, it was a bit of a struggle for me because I couldn't stand all those speeches and looks full of national pride. The screenplay felt like a chaotic mess, with logic barely getting a look-in. If it weren't for the captivating CGI destruction of American icons and some well-executed action sequences, I would have been much less generous but I gritted my teeth and settled on two stars. / Lesson learned: Trash collectors are not what they seem. (04/07/2022)

Within the genre, it's quite good and inoffensive, but Roland Emmerich played with practically the same theme in White House Down in a much more ingenious way and... And above all, in a funnier way. Indeed, exaggeration or any lightening of Olympus Has Fallen is what is most lacking. It is very action-packed, the occupation of the White House is briskly filmed and it all happens so fast that you almost don't notice the classic "All those pros got shot like a herd of sheep" crap. But everything else is meant to be so deadly serious, the characters swearing allegiance to the stars and stripes with death on their tongues, that weaker people with an allergy to kitsch, clichés and patriotism simply can't enjoy it. (15/08/2013)