Olympus Has Fallen
Watching Olympus has Fallen can feel like watching a movie from a completely different time. Picture it. Kim Joung-un just became the supreme leader of North Korea and was testing the countries nuclear missiles capabilities. Hollywood has made so many movies about our real enemies: The Nazis, The Russians and every man women and child who worships Ali (weather they are our enemy or not). I’m sure tinsel town could not wait to do something “Fresh” and the freight of a young new dictator was exactly what they needed and Olympus has Fallen was birthed out of that.
Too bad America’s 45th president made action movies about North Korea get over shadowed by comedies about him. This era only saw like three movies (I think) this one, Red Dawn and The interview (which was actually a comedy that cause a cyber war with North Korea (that they kinda won). Makes me wonder what Joung-Un thought of Olympus has Fallen.
Possibly not much as technically the film takes a very South Korean approach to war and terrorisms. Rick Yune plays a man who is part of a South Korean ambassadors cabinet, but as it turns out he’s a North Korea in disguise who gets into the white house in order to create a nuclear strike that will show America they should have not meddled in the Korean war back in the day. It’s super common in Korean cinema to do an action movie about a North Korean spy who literally spent his entire life undercover in South Korea which messes up his head enough to fight for the people he made friends with (That’s not what happen in this film, however).
Not to get confused 300’s Gerard Butler is the star of this movie who plays the down on his luck hero who, despite not being in the actual position to save the day is the only one who can. An archetype perfected by Bruce Willis, but Butler does put his spin on it but being completely sober. Butler plays the main secret service agent to the president (played by Aron Eckhart who feels like the white Obama in this). Some fucked up shit that’s out of anyone’s control goes down and this agent gets demoted to protecting the Treasurer (played by Angela Bassett). On one side you could say if this agent was on the president’s hip the Koreans would not have been able to take out the White House, on the other side maybe it was a good thing he got demoted cause he was not there when the attacked began allowing him to be in the position to get back the White House (Either way Clint Eastwood’s son Scott dies like a punk )
Just to mention everyone on the poster, Morgan Freeman plays the Speaker of the House who becomes acting president when Olympus falls. After Deep Impact this is the second time Freeman plays a president, both times it was a sort run do to a major disaster.
It’s an action movie good enough to make two more mindless movies about the same thing, but giving the film credit you would think it’s a good enough action film casue it’s a formulated action movie plot you can’t really mess up yet Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatium did just that in White House down, which had the advantage of coming out first but Olympus Has Fallen shows you how it’s down.
