London Has Fallen (2016)

"London Has Fallen" stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, and Morgan Freeman. Released on March 4, 2016, the film has Mike Banning springing into action once again when he discovers a terrifying plot to assassinate the world's most powerful leaders.

The film is directed by Babak Najafi, who is known for directing Sebbe and Easy Money II: Hard to Kill. It is a sequel to the 2013 film, Olympus Has Fallen. This is Najafi's first English-language film he directed since his other films were Swedish. Olympus Has Fallen was a modest box office success back in 2013, so it's no surprise that they were developing a sequel. I have seen the film a while back and I thought it was decent. Lucky enough, I managed to watch it again on television last night to get caught up. What's different about this film is that the action doesn't take place in the White House, but in London. It does have a nice change to it instead of just having another terrorist attack at the White House, but is it enough to make the sequel watchable? In most cases, yeah…

Most of the main cast reprised their roles from the first film, including Butler as Banning, Eckhart as President Two-Face…duh, I'm sorry, President Benjamin Asher, and Freeman as Trumbull. I thought they did a nice job with their portrayals, especially Freeman. I just love his magnificent voice. Like I said before, the action takes place in the entire city of London, England. What I liked about this change is that it left room for the director to plan out his action scenes compared to just the White House in the first film. Unfortunately, to me, it does feel a bit limited and straightforward. The action sequences were pretty entertaining and well-directed. No spoilers, but there's this one action scene that was shot in one continuous take. This is probably my favorite scene out of the entire film because it made me feel like I was part of the action. Most action scenes do have the tendency to edit or have shaky cam to increase the effect of realism, but that one shot in the film proves that you don't always need to use those types of tools to shoot a realistic action scene.

Like its predecessor, the film's story has its predictable moments and, of course, its cheesy one-liners. I mean, whenever you see an action film like this, there's a good chance you might run into those sooner or later. Also, the film wasn't able to capture enough emotional depth. I know it's supposed to be a fun R-rated action film, but come on, these people were killed by flipping terrorists! Have a heart, man. The first act of the film felt a bit slow at times and the third act was underwhelming. Another flaw I had with this film was the villain, Barkawi (played by Alon Moni Aboutboul). He's basically just a generic antagonist who gives out orders and he barely has enough screen time. I was hoping that he would at least put up a fight against the heroes.
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Overall, There's plenty of R-rated fun to go around in "London Has Fallen", a thrilling sequel that lacks on emotion and story, but does have the tendency to blow sh*t up. It's not better or worse than its predecessor, just in the middle, and that's what I was expecting it to be in the first place. If you liked the first film for what it is, you're bound to like this film as well.

C+