Olympus Has Fallen (2013/Sony DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: D Film: C+
The White
House is taken over by terrorists and the President (Aaron Eckhart) has been
taken hostage (again !?!). Only disgraced former head secret service Mike Banning
(Gerard Butler) can rescue the President and stop the threat of nuclear war. As the Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman)
takes charge of Army, Navy, and Air Force to retake the White House, his only
eyes, ears and intelligence inside White House is Mike, but with national
security compromised and the Secret Service all dead, they no choice but to
rely this one man army in Antoine Fuqua’s repetitive Olympus Has Fallen (2013).
After
failing to save the First Lady (but still saving the President), leaves the
Secret Service until the White House gets blitzkrieged by extremist North Korean
terrorist, the President and his Cabinet members get taken hostage, and the
terrorist demands the withdrawal of US troops from foreign soil and the control
of a top secret project 'Cerberus', the ability to detonate all American
nuclear weapons. As the Speaker steps up
as acting President, his Generals and their armies have all been neutralized by
the enemy forces and tactics, and now all the hopes of a nation comes down to
one man with an uncompromising mission, stop the terrorist, save the President
and stop nuclear fallout... at no matter what the cost.
Given the
world politics when this movie was been made (i.e., recently), you have to
wonder if this movie had a political message (usually all movies start at the
begin with any ideas, images do not reflect ideals of it's creator, surprising
there was none), but it shows how a sudden surprise attack from a certain
country can compromise the White House, President and become threat to world
security. The Generals are all
incompetent as their soldiers, tactics and countermeasures have been counter
attacked. Only single man, a disgraced
member, a wild card survives shows how Americans don't give in to terrorist,
all very patriotic and action oriented.
So much for any message, so Training
Day it is not.
At least
it was shot on 35mm film, though the anamorphically enhanced DVD here is a bit
soft, we bet the Blu-ray would look better despite the downstyling of the
image, while the lossy Dolby Digital; 5.1 mix is all over the place and a
little weak. Extras include trailers.
- Ricky Chiang
