London Has Fallen

Filipe Manuel Neto

1/10

4/3/2023

**Real name of this film: How to insult half the allied countries in the name of one's own ego.** Occasionally, American cinema seems to need an injection of idiotic nationalism. “Olympus Has Fallen” did that, but there are still some technical and entertaining qualities there. This film fails to do the same, besides treating other countries (especially the British) like morons. And so, Americans continue to think they are the greatest nation in the world and to compete with others like teenagers measuring their… you get the point. The film is a sequel to “Olympus” and shows how the American president will escape by a hair (it can't even be considered a spoiler to say this, because the plot is so cliché that we already know more or less what will happen here in the act in which we decided to see the film!) to a terrorist attack which, in fact, is more like an act of war. Yes, a terrorist decides to send an army to kill Western prime ministers and presidents who gather in London for a state funeral and all the police and security agencies in the West were asleep and didn't see them. As expected, God saves the Queen and the entire Windsor family, who are not even targeted by the attacks and continue to have their tea in Buckingham without appearing in the film. On the other hand (or maybe a bonus?) the British still have the unusual pleasure of seeing the French president become food for fish in the River Thames... but, judging by the continued protests in France for a few years until now, perhaps the French are not mourning their loss... I know I'm being deeply sarcastic, but there's no other way to watch this movie without feeling deeply insulted. The way the film places the USA as the greatest thing in the world and belittles allied countries, (but) direct competitors in defense and economy (Canada, Germany, UK, France, Japan, Italy etc.) makes us want to watch the US committing failure after failure which, in real life, ends up happening. Seeing all the international leaders casually strolling and dating when, in real life, they would be surrounded by security guards on their way to the ceremony is a very incorrect idea of how these events are organised. But it's wrong to expect a movie like this to care about things as silly and puerile as that thing called verisimilitude. When you have tons of action and a world-renowned city being blown up like a village in Syria or Afghanistan, what does it matter if all that stuff is credible? There might even be Mickey Mouse there with a machine gun! Who cares? As for the cast… what can we say? We can say that, certainly, the fee was good, and that the film did wonders to the bank balance of the actors, in particular Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler, who did not have to make any effort to play the characters and who are here for the money. And if we take into account that Freeman is the most outstanding actor, and even he is far from revealing the enormous talent that we know he has, that says a lot about the overall performance of the cast, doesn't it? The film tries everything to entertain, but fails. The weakness of the dialogues and the meager attempts to introduce humor would have deserved a punch in the face of the screenwriter who wrote them, who must have thought that we, the audience, don't have a brain. The action scenes are noisy, with the Americans running around London like a bunch of cowboys shooting and blowing things up, but the special effects and CGI are extraordinarily weak. Editing is another problem: unlike the previous film, which practically threw us into the middle of the action without much foreplay, this film drags on in the introduction without it being very necessary. What do we care if the Canadian PM's daughter fails her driving test, or if the German Chancellor likes men in uniform? And if Freeman's character is so fond of fishing, after this film he can go to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and choose the biggest boat he can find there.

Andre Gonzales

7/10

8/28/2023

Great storyline of the movie but not as much action as the first. They went with the more drama side of things on this movie.

tmdbj987654

5/10

6/20/2026

As an action movie, it kept my attention. As for the content, it felt irritatingly pro-American. The movie is propaganda, as far as I'm concerned. The Americans can do no wrong - they are all very brave and professional. It's the other countries' leaders that get assassinated and whose communications get compromised. The bad guys bring up America's participation in wars abroad – among the listening Americans, there is not a single hint of self-awareness, or the slightest impression that they understand their deep hypocrisy in criticizing the terrorists for killing civilians, including as collateral damage. Pro-American: - Butler gives a speech about America while beating up a villain - The Americans can do no wrong - they are all very brave and professional - US President starts reciting his swearing-in oath while in dire straits - Only _other_ foreign leaders get assassinated - Other foreign leaders have basically no protection - Patriotic music in the background - Only foreign communications were compromised - The main villain is an arms dealer, and criticised for selling weapons, when the USA is the largest arms dealer in the world (leading in arms exports: https://worldostats.com/country-stats/arms-exports-by-country/), a fact that is never mentioned that I remember - Everyone in the Situation Room _and_ the British equivalent jump for joy and hug each other when they hear good news about the _US_ President Pro-interventionist: - Morgan Freeman's character literally defends US interventionism at the end, saying something like, "Some say we should be less involved, that we bring this on ourselves – nothing could be further from the truth. We live in a dangerous world with few good options". Lack of self-awareness: - In the end, the Americans use exactly the same tactic that started the problem to "solve" the problem - The US military killing dozens of civilians passed off as a regrettable accident ("we didn't know his daughter was there") when they obviously could have known, and there was no conversation about how the US could easily have done the operation differently. But the bad guys are bad for killing civilians as collateral damage! - At no point does any American genuinely wonder if they should actually take some responsibility, or apologize, or face accountability (like prison), for the many civilians they killed Xenophobic / racist / anti-brown people: - Butler's character makes an unnecessarily racist comment about countries ending in "stan". I've lived in one of those countries, and it is not fair that they are only referenced in this hateful way. As far as I remember, brown people are in this movie are exclusively the bad guys Equality: - Women have little screentime. The wife of the main character is used to motivate him. There is a pretty female MI6 agent with a role in the plot, but not much time onscreen. There are, however, at least 4 main male characters who spend plenty of time onscreen.