Checked out the new action flick Angel Has Fallen. This is (inexplicably) the third movie in the “Has Fallen” series… the first being Olympus Has Fallen (DC is attacked) and the second London Has Fallen (ahem, London that time). They star Gerard Butler and an inexplicably good cast for such mindless action flicks. And I liked Olympus Has Fallen for the horror spectacle that it was… and kind of enjoyed London as well even though it wasn’t as inspired. But I never thought they needed another one but here we are.
So Angel Has Fallen refers to Gerard Butler’s secret service agent (the president’s Guardian Angel, so to speak). After an assassination attempt on President Morgan Freeman, Butler’s character is set up to be the fall guy. So he has to go (insert copyright / registered trademark here) On the Run to Prove his Innocence. Yeah… it’s that old plot from a dozen older movies revived once again for maximum originality.
But whatever… not everything has to be original. Is it a good version of that movie and is it a good sequel? No on both accounts. I thought this was a repetitive, loud, garish, and annoying action movie without any of the real spectacle or even the over-the-top violence of the previous flicks. I was very, very, very bored with this flick and its mediocre, by-the-numbers, shakey-cam action. And I’m disappointed they didn’t carry through with the “X” city under attack thing… Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco, Decatur…)
Early on the film, Butler’s character visits a doctor to find that all the action from the previous movies have left his body at risk. He’s getting older, feeling his wounds and his age. This never comes up again in the movie… apparently having compacted vertebrae that might shatter is no big deal as long as you cover your body with a corpse when a grenade goes off. It was dangerously close to having character development or a theme there. Dodged that bullet! <sarcasm>
That said, there’s an inexplicably good actor doing inexplicably good work in the flick. Nick Nolte and his gruff voice and even gruffer beard show up as Butler’s Vietnam-era dad living/hiding in the woods. Someone didn’t tell Nolte not to try… that he’s in a big brainless action flick. Because he provides a surprisingly powerful and moving performance as a paranoid recluse who regrets abandoning his family due to PTSD. It’s a small part, it could be cut from the movie completely, and it probably takes up too much screen time for what he means to the flick… but he’s giving it his all. And it comes dangerously close to introducing a theme about the costs of war through the generations. But whatever… look! Explosions!
Otherwise, nothing much to recommend here unless you love really big practical pyro explosions (this movie puts the booms on screen, I’ll give it that). It’s not a high-concept actioner like the other two, it has a super-predictable plot, and non-surprising surprises (just play the “hey, I know that character actor…. how long before we find out he’s the bad guy?” game). Even by the standards of dumb, turn-off-your brain action flicks, this one is lacking. Skip.
Score: 64