Director: Babak Najafi.
Starring: Gerald Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett.
Okay, I found the first one Olympus Has Fallen average. A little OTT with a death count higher than a world war movie. I know, I get it, it's just a movie but still. It's got to be slightly believable and this one certainly goes for the big guns. Set in my home city it was nice to see it shot accurately as many films do get London geographically wrong which has always bugged me. Eckhart is still in office and Bulter back in full service after cleaning up the White House. Bulter doesn't forget himself, but goes from a remorseful, demoted secret serviceman to a quite the angry, violent psychopath who is lethal if not brutal with a serrated blade. He's got issues. Paranoia being one of them. He's not the so Casey Ryback where the bad guys think they're being taken out by the janitor. In fact, there's little attention to who Banning actually is this time round and it's difficult to take himself seriously with his crude satphone rants. You could almost forget he's there to save/protect the president and is there just to terminate the terrorists. He could make a good punisher! Fairly new comer Babak Najafi takes the helm and does a good job with fast paced action and being on foot this time, a good car chase. It's big explosions, flying RPGs and bullets galore but it misses emotional investment and has lack of heart. There's a poor attempt at a conspiracy which makes it feel more like a British soap opera. It goes from being overdramatic to all out street war. The gore makes up for the poor CGI. 'That explosion was awful but let's shock the audience with a couple of face stabbings and they're forget about it.' Trevor Morris does a decent score peaking my interest in him, being very much like Black Hawk Down in parts or even Gladiator; both Hans Zimmer scores. But it's good and sets the scene well, it's noticeable. It's entertaining like the first and I wouldn't say it's either better or worse than Olympus so if you enjoyed that then you might enjoy this one. For me, it was as expected, an average actioner, high death count. But it's the same premise, terrorist army takes out everyone! And only Banning manages to eliminate pretty much all of them. I thought that was John McClane's job.
Running Time: 7
The Cast: 6
Performance: 6
Direction: 6
Story: 5
Script: 4
Creativity: 6
Soundtrack: 6
Job Description: 8
The Extra Bonus Point: 0
54% 5/10
