Man Movie Encyclopedia: Olympus Has Fallen

Greetings, good people.

Clearly you’re here because you dig when your boy reviews stuff. Or, you love White House action movies. Either way, head on over to Str8 Gangster, No Chaser to get a review of the 2001 Royal Rumble, Best of In Your House, and Uncut Gems. Hot damn!

Alright, now let’s head to Washington D.C….

We open up at a place called Camp David, where former Army Ranger Mike Banning is leading his squad of Secret Service cats to a Christmas party with the President, his wife, and their son, when the cars skid on some ice and the Presidential limo goes off a bridge, with the 1st Lady inside, as Banning was unable to save her, due to her seat belt being stuck and it going over before he could cut it.

We then fast forward 18 months later. It’s always 18 months. He’s no longer with the Secret Service, and all his wife does is yell at him for not caring about her stupid friends and their stupid boyfriends. This has NOTHING to do with shooting and beating the shit out of people, and he’s clearly annoyed by it. We then learn that he was basically fired, cause the President didn’t want him around as a reminder.

At the White House, the Prime Minister of South Korea has shown up, as they’re gonna talk about what’s going on with North Korea and all that. At the same time, a giant cargo plane comes over Washington DC, blasting everything to hell. They chop up a lot of people before being shot down. Then who’s ever behind this, they start the ground attack, where apparently all the cops and secret service men are people who’ve had exactly NO DAYS of training, or even the most basic understanding of war fare. Not only this, but nobody speaks up, there’s not a single person yelling…

Secret Service Agent Caliber: [hiding behind a pillar] Hey, guys, I’m sorry, but did I miss the day in training when they advised to block bullets with our faces? I feel like a real idiot, as I’m lying down when the bullets fly, and ya’ll are not only standing, but standing on your tip-toes. Matter of fact, I think I just saw Steve getting a step stool. Is this my bad?! Oh look, that guy has an RPG, I better attempt to catch it in mid-air and put it in a headlock, per our battle plans, apparently!

So, we quickly learn that the gang that’s taken over the WH want troops withdrawn from a certain area, as well as to disable all the Nukes in the US, leaving us vulnerable, apparently. Banning, who worked closely to the White House, ends up making his way in, as he’s apparently the only American with actual training. He takes out quite a few members of the group, and then finds the President’s son, and gets him out of the White House.

We’ve got a rat in the White House crew, of course, with just about the worst story-arc in movie history. Seriously, his reason for doing what he did, because he felt the President sold out. That’s it. He felt OK with opening up the US to nuclear destruction because the President sold out. Later, he’ll be sent to find Banning, and when he does, he attempts to kill him, only to lose the fight, and then IMMEDIATELY make an about face for no reason. And, again, when asked why, he says “I lost my way”. Jesus. Were the writers trying to get home early that day or something?

Now, as I previously mentioned, the nuclear destruction, there’s a program called Cerberus, which can detonate all the nukes in the country. You just gotta enter the 3 passwords, held by 3 different people. That’s it. THAT’S IT. You have those, and you can literally kill the most successful and influential company in the world. WHY WAS THIS PROGRAM MADE?! Why was there NO ONE who spoke up at the meeting?!

Secret Service Agent Caliber: Look, I know I wasn’t popular when I started asking us to change our training protocols so guys know the best way to deal with gun-fire is not to try and catch it with their face, but hear me out…why do we need this program? So we can detonate a nuke that’s mid-flight, in case we wanna do a take-backsies? Really? I feel like….I dunno, call me crazy, but I feel like if there’s a chance of “eh, nevermind”, then said nuke should never be fired. Again, call me nuts, but firing a nuke isn’t something that one could just change their mind about mid-flight. Also, why would we give someone the chance to blow up the entire country?

Well, now that Mike is in there kicking ass, he’s also on the phone basically giving orders to all the higher-ups and telling them what’s what. The Speaker of the House, who’s now acting President, him and the other cats decide to send in 6 helicopters loaded with Marines. However, we quickly learn that the bad guys have some brand new, super advanced weapon that the US developed! The best is that they’re told to “look out for special weaponry”, well what the fuck does that mean?! How do you look out for special weaponry? It’s special! A person who doesn’t know what a gun is or does wouldn’t know to be afraid of it. You tell me something like that, and 6 months later I’m being court marshalled because I opened fire on a kid with a hoverboard. I dunno, it could have been a mobile ISIS IED! Again, I need more description than “special weaponry”. Now, what does this super-secret, we’re-fucked weapon turn out to be? A chain gun. Yes. A chain gun. Seriously? And the helicopters plan is for ALL SIX OF THEM to fly right in the path of the bullets. No one thinks to send a ‘copter around and shoot it while it’s shooting at the others? Clearly their pilots trained with the soldiers on the ground.

After all this, the remaining hostages and soldiers get into a helicopter that was provided for them as an escape plan. However, soon as it takes off it blows up, killing everyone. Just like in Die Hard. Well, Mike isn’t buying that, and good thing too, as the leader of the gang along with a few select others, activate Cerberus and attempt to escape via some underground tunnels apparently, with the President in tow, just in case. OK…so, escape to where? In 5 minutes the place is going to be a nuclear wasteland. Cue my man Tony Stark “not a great plan”.
Well, Mike shows up to shit in everyone’s Wheaties, and kills them all before disarming Cerberus. The best part of which is that the codes to fire this fucker up are like, 6 characters, only numbers and letters. However, the code to turn it off, to STOP FROM THE NATION BURNING, is like 30 characters long, which includes fucking hashtags! And the dude who’s reading it to Mike is reading it like he’s telling him his Netflix password. Like, damn, bruh, could we PLEASE speed this up? And much to my shock, there wasn’t a captcha thing beforehand to confirm Mike wasn’t a robot. So, he disarms it, and walks the President out, who makes jokes among a field of dead bodies of people he knew and worked for him.

MAN MOVIE TALLY:
1-Liners: 1
Guys Beat Up: 5
Guys Killed: 96
Swear Words: 52
Boobies: 0
Explosions: 7
Chase: 1
Broken Bones: 0
Fight/Shoot-Out At Motel?: No
Guy Get Girl? Yes
Guy/Girl Smoke?: No

MAN FACTS:
Apparently the attack on the White House was designed by former Secret Service agents who were asked how they’d do it. Well, they must have been trained by the agents in this movie, because I did my research, and this shit was NOT gonna happen. First off, no way that plane would have ever gotten that close. The dump-trucks wouldn’t have either, because traffic isn’t even allowed near the White House. I mean, they’ve got such an insane amount of security there.

Angela Bassett only took the role so she could work with Morgan.

Multiple stations were fined, because they aired trailers of this film that used the Emergency Broadcast Station tone, which apparently is very illegal to use when it’s not an actual emergency broadcast.

C’MON BENNETT, LET’S PARTY!:
Olympus Has Fallen is an action film that’s very much in the same vein as a lot of 80’s action movies. We’ve got a group of bad guys going up against a bad-ass that is allergic to getting hit by any bullets, and thankfully is always at the right place and the right time. There’s a ton of swearing, and a ton of violence, which is awesome. It’s an action movie, dammit. However, none of the characters are interesting, at all. You don’t give a fuck about any of’em, and Mike Banning is about as generic and faceless as an action hero can get. It’s a fun movie, but absolutely the definiton of a pop-corn film. Just turn your brain off and have a good time.
***1/4 Head-Butts out of 5

Any questions, comments, drunk-ramblings, feel free to send them my way, I always dig hearing from you, the beautiful people.
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