Review – London Has Fallen

London Has Fallen is complete chaos.  It’s a no-holds-barred, adrenalin fueled action flick that is as violent as it is stupid.

When the London Prime Minister dies, it brings all the world leaders to the funeral, including the American President, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart).  During the funeral, there is an attack on London attempting to kill all the world leaders.  It is now up to Asher’s number one agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) to keep the President safe and stop the terrorists.

The most incredible thing about this movie is that it took four people to write the screenplay.  Four!  I literally could not stop thinking about this the entire movie.  Like, how the hell does it take four people to write such a simple, ridiculous, and stupid movie.  Was it separated by regular dialog, cheesy one-liners, settings, and action scenes?  I can’t imagine it took four writers to come up with brilliant lines like, “I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty as fuck.” or hilarious jokes like, “I was wondering when you were going to come out of the closet.” referring to a scene where the President was hiding in a closet and then comes out to shoot somebody in the head.

And speaking of the violence, it comes in the motherload.  This movie feels like the best video game adaptation of all-time.  Each scene feels like a new level with more and more bad guys and more ridiculous obstacles for Banning and the President to overcome and they constantly pick up bigger weapons and more ammunition from all the people they have killed.  And apparently these guys have infinite lives because there is no way they would survive some of the things they went through.  But, that aside, the action is as awesome as you’d want.  Bullets fly by the hundred, every building in downtown London has blown up, and the body count is more than the runtime.  There is a really well made, really cool, single take tracking shot following Banning and bunch of British soliders as they face off against terrorists on a narrow street.  It was by far the best part of the movie.

London Has Fallen may be a dumb action movie, but being dumb isn’t it’s biggest problem.  The problem with London Has Fallen, along with its predecessor, Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and most action films today, is that there isn’t a good villain.  There’s no Hans Gruber from Die Hard (1988), or a Howard Payne from Speed (1994), or a Norman Stansfield from Leon: The Professional (1994).  Most of the villains we get today are recycled and cliche, which is the case in London Has Fallen.  The best movies are when we love the villains as much as we love our heroes, if not more so, and that is an aspect that sadly gets overlooked in this film and most action films.

If you want an insane, violent, humerus, “so stupid it’s fun” action movie, definitely check out London Has Fallen.

MY RATING – 2.5/4

Did you see London Has Fallen?  If so, what did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter @kevflix and on Facebook at Kevflix.