Olympus has fallen… again.
The H-Bomb: The U.S. President (Jamie Foxx) returns home just as he’s on the verge of brokering a historic deal that will bring peace to the Middle East. This is a deal that could very well piss off a lot of interested parties, including the usual wacko groups from that region, as well as a number of defense contractors who have profited from the never ending cycle of war. It becomes abundantly clear that someone is indeed seriously upset by this deal, when a big explosion rocks the Capitol Building.
The Secret Service moves fast to try and get the President to safety, but it’s too late, as terrorists have already infiltrated the White House… terrorists who are “obviously not Al-Qaeda.” Instead, they’re a scruffy but well organized lot of paramilitary types. In what seems like an impossibly efficient manner, this goon squad takes over the White House completely, wiping out the Secret Service personnel and taking control of the anti-aircraft weapons on the roof.
Having captured all the high ranking members of the cabinet, as well as a number of tourists from a tour group as hostages, and with the President about to be delivered to them, it’s looking like the terrorists are holding all the cards. But, there’s one thing they didn’t count on, Cale (Channing Tatum), a U.S. Capitol police officer who was in the tour group along with his estranged daughter, Emily (Joey King), when all the shit went down. Cale immediately springs into action as he escapes from the tour group, kills one of the goons, and manages to get the President away from his would be captors. Now, it’s up to Cale and the Commander-in-Chief to take out the terrorists and save the other hostages… including his daughter. Hmm… why does all of this sound so damn familiar?
Before I get into the review, I must ask, what is it with Roland Emmerich and destroying the White House? He had aliens nuke it in Independence Day, an event that is directly referenced, rather lamely, in this film. Then in 2012 (2009), he had a massive CGI tidal wave wipe it out. Now, in White House Down, he blows the place up from the inside out. What the man has against that great building, I’ll never know.
Here’s something I do know, I am not a fan of Heir Emmerich. Sure, I like Stargate, and I loved Independence Day back in the summer of ’96… when I was fifteen-years-old, but from Godzilla onward, he transmorphed into a complete and total hack of the Michael Bay variety, and after the excruciating Day After Tomorrow, I swore I would never subject myself to his moronic, effects driven disasterpieces ever again.
Needless to say, I was not at all anticipating White House Down, and I went into the screening dragging my heels big time, surer than sure it would suck a big one. And now that I’ve seen it, I must admit, it is a hell of a lot of fun. Granted, the first twenty minutes or so are a tad tedious, but once it got going, I had an absolute blast. The almost non-stop action is very well assembled, with shoot outs and fist fights that pack a pretty mean punch, and legitimately exciting, albeit PG-13 all the way through (a guy gets an entire Gatling gun emptied into him without a single drop of blood to be found).
Best of all, we get a surprisingly engaging and credible lead in Tatum, who I had never paid attention to before (I’ve never seen Magic Mike, and I never will… that’s more Rick Swift’s type of movie). I’ve heard people give him crap in the past, with someone online once describing him as “a slab of beef with a head on top,” but I think he wore the action hero suit quite well. And that’s not to mention he more than holds his own with a very solid ensemble of supporting players, including James Woods and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Secret Service Agents, Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) as our main villain, and Richard Jenkins as the Speaker of the House, who’s trying in vain to keep order amid the chaos.
Director Emmerich, again, does a masterful job of staging the action, without relying on nauseating shaky cam and incoherent quick cutting, with the crazy vehicle chase where the baddies pursue our heroes onto the White House lawn itself being worth the ticket price. The scenes where Tatum and Clarke throw down mano y mano are also very well done. Heir Emmerich may have faults as a story teller (one of them being stuffing too much comic relief into his films), but the guy knows how to shoot action and do it well. I defy anyone not to get caught up in this cinematic roller coaster, even if there’s nothing original (more on that in a moment) or believable about it.
In fact, believability pretty much gets blown all to hell. I mean, how many times can Channing Tatum have some gigantic explosion go off right next to his head and escape with only minor cuts and scrapes? But the real question is, should you care that it’s so unbelievable? No, not really. This is the kind of loud summer movie that’s meant to be enjoyed in between mouthfuls of popcorn, not pondered over or scrutinized thoroughly. As long as you leave your thinking cap at home, you’ll be fine.
If there’s anything I would come down on this Die Hard in the White House flick for, it’s, again, the lack of originality. I mention Olympus Has Fallen in my sub-heading, but honestly, I have no idea how close this is to that, as I haven’t seen it. However, I can attest that it is too damn close to Die Hard. I was a little beside myself at how many things from that film were just blatantly ripped off. Let’s do a rundown; Tatum takes one of the terrorists’ walkie-talkies and uses it to spy on them, he climbs around in an elevator shaft, he’s mistaken for a terrorist and shot at by an attack helicopter when he’s on the roof, and… ladies, pay attention… he strips down to his wife-beater when the going gets tough. That’s just naming a few. Scores of action films have followed the Die Hard formula over the years, but this one has so many similarities it could legally be considered a remake.
Anyway, all uncomfortable similarities to Die Hard aside, there’s also some rather appalling CGI that pulled me out of the movie more than once, such as the helicopters that were oh-so-obviously digitally inserted over the city streets, and pretty much all of the explosions in the film, which look like they were cut and pasted from a PS2 game. Considering Emmerich had a $150 million dollar budget to play with, the effects were laughably shoddy. Also, at 131 minutes, it goes on for too damn long. A good 15-30 minutes could have been shaved off this beast, and the movie would have been better for it.
But despite the lengthy run time and my issues with the not-so-special effects, I can honestly say that White House Down is a lot better than it has any right to be. In my always humble opinion, it’s by far Emmerich’s best film since Independence Day, which could very well make it his best film, period. It’s a rockin’, rollicking, and utterly ridiculous old school action flick, with enough gunfire and carnage to spare. It won’t totally blow you away, but overall, it’s not a bad way to kill a couple hours on a slow summer day.
