Comments on: Gerard Butler still has it – Mount Olympus style

By: Jeremy Fogelman

Jeremy Fogelman — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 05:45:28 +0000

There’s a lot I could say but… I though Gerard Butler was good, and I actually said that in my review. Morgan Freeman was phoning it in and Aaron Eckhart had terribly written lines that couldn’t be saved by any acting prowess. Other actors were pretty decent. “Looked pretty, good lead performance, terrible writing” is my summary and I stand by that.

By: weetiger3

weetiger3 — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:29:07 +0000

If you are interested in Gerard Butler as an actor, you do yourself a disservice not to see both Machine Gun Preacher and Chasing Mavericks (neither of which are romcoms and in both of which he’s very, very good). I happen to think he’s also very good in Playing for Keeps, despite a wildly uneven story (It’s not a typical “romcom” either), but it won’t be everyone’s cuppa.

By: An Nicholson

An Nicholson — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:28:46 +0000

I stand by the assertion that it’s a smart film, especially because they maintained the thesis and didn’t become overtly bogged down by side details.In the big scheme of 1.5 hours, do we need to spend 5 min finding a judge and an additional 5-10 min adding ANOTHER interim character? While I will give you the opening strike and a plot hinged on the expectation the president will take BOTH the visiting representative AND his staff into the bunker AND would rather avoid seeing his staff harmed. Things I enjoyed included the relationship between POTUS and FLOTUS; the comment on ‘i’d rather die …’, the utter normalcy of the event that changed Banning’s life (it could happen to any of us); the strong cast performances; the covert pointing out of potential holes in our current systems and practices; Butler’s believably grizzled performance; a cohesive, well-flowed script that didn’t jump about irrationally in the narrative and the writers not turning the Banning character, post-event, into a sad, ostracized alcoholic while granting him a healthy relationship with his wife all make it smart.

I forgive a couple inconsistencies (which I only viewed as 20% of the film) because it is an action film, first and foremost, with a focus on entertainment. But, unlike action films I’ve seen in the past, it doesn’t drop the plot or lose focus. Although we disagree on execution, at least we agree that we both enjoyed the film –

By: Ivey West

Ivey West — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:10:31 +0000

I was actually going to write up my thoughts, but I’m not sure Olympus has Fallen deserves a third post from CliqueClack. My main point was simply that while it was fun — a lot of fun actually — it insulted the intelligence of its audience way more than it should have:

* A rogue AC-130 gets all the way to Alexandria before it is challenged (This was one of those things that you have to be willing to suspend disbelief on for the movie to work; I would have had it not been for everything else).
* The Secretary of Defense and not SecState is in a meeting in the White House with a foreign diplomat? I can conceive scenarios where SecDef would be there, but in none of those would SecState NOT be; at least give a “he/she’s out of the country” mention.
* The insurgents got very lucky that most — if not all — of the White House’s defenses all came streaming out of the front door.
* You mentioned the fact that the code on the safe in the Oval hadn’t changed in the 18 — or whatever it was — months that Banning had been off the Detail.
* The only thing the film got right about Presidential Succession was that the Speaker of the House comes after VPOTUS. He doesn’t, however, walk into a room where the Director of the Secret Service “deems” him the “Acting President.” They’d get a judge and swear him in has “The President” with all that goes with it.
* Could the film make up its mind about whether or not to use the President’s son’s Name or Code Name over the radio. The first 10 minutes it was his name, and then it switched to his Code Name Sparkplug. It SHOULD have been the Code Name the whole time, but definitely not both.
* This may have just been an earlier print I saw, but one of the news outlets that they kept cutting to spelled it “Whitehouse” on their graphics.
* The MacGuffin was HORRID: The United States builds this system that allows us to destroy our nuclear missiles mid-flight if we made a mistake, but limits its use to only three people (POTUS, SecDef, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs).
– The ability to launch the nukes has a mechanism in place for if the President is captured, but ability to stop them doesn’t.
– If this system existed, why would you want to limit control? I’d want more people, like Strategic Command, to be in as well.
– And there’s no failsafe to ensure it can only be used when the missiles are in flight?

(And that’s just what I remember 2.5 weeks later)

I’m sorry, An: I liked Olympus has Fallen, because it was fun and popcorny. But the film was the oppositie of “smart.”