If "Olympus Has Fallen" was "Die Hard" set in the White House, than "White House Down" is like "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" set in the White House!
To start things off, yes, I definitely liked this movie better than "Olympus Has Fallen". Both movies of course feature a similar type of plot and got released around the same time, so it's hard not to compare the two of them. Even though this is an ever far more silly movie, it at the same time is also a far more entertaining one. It's dumber, it's way more overblown but that's what makes it better and more entertaining one to watch! I basically don't remember a thing about "Olympus Has Fallen" really but I'm sure I'm going to remember some of the silly but spectacular action moments that were in this movie, in months from now!
I was basically entertained all throughout by this movie. Of course it's not a perfect one and of course I noticed all of its flaws and inconsistencies as well but all of this simply matters less, once a movie still manages to entertain me.
It actually is Roland Emmerich's best movie in years! I used to like all of his movies, till he started doing mediocre- and just plain bad ones. With this movie he truly returns to form and it besides shows that I can be important for an action movie to have an experienced and seasoned director at the helm, who is confident and knows what he is doing.
It's also always good to see Channing Tatum continue to grown and improve as an actor. He definitely is a great and charismatic actor for these type of movies. He's really in his element and handles all of the action well, while at the same time also managing to play a likable protagonist.
But I have to say though; there are large portions of the movie in which neither Channing Tatum or Jamie Foxx plays much of a role. Sometimes they disappear out of the movie and story completely, which was a bit of an odd thing to note. Hard to say what was the cause of all of this. Maybe there were too many other characters, with each their own thing going on. Or perhaps the movie went through 1 or 2 too many rewrites before- or during production. The movie is filled with stuff like this, which makes it all the more obvious this is a far from perfect genre flick.
Even though it's definitely a good enough- and fun enough movie, it at the same time still feels like wasted potential as well. There is so much more they could have done with its story. So much more they could have done with some of its characters but the movie mostly plays things safe and by the numbers. It does make the movie a tad bit predictable at parts and just a bit too simplistic overall. But oh well, at least it handles all of its formulaic and predictable elements very well, so it isn't too much of a problem.
Thing that did still bother me were its special effects. Seriously, here we have a $150.000.000 movie, with special effects that however look sub-par, at best. Simply not acceptable for a movie of this sort and caliber!
And to complain about one more thing; was there really a need for this movie to be over 2 hours long? It definitely felt too long and it caused to movie to be a bit of a needlessly slow- and stretched out one at times.
But despite of all of its obvious flaws and ludicrous story elements, I simply had fun with this movie and enjoyed watching it, from start to finish.
7/10
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