I had no plans to ever see Olympus Has Fallen, but after seeing The Equalizer, which was magnificent, and realizing that it was made by Antoine Fuqua, the same director who made King Arthur and The Replacement Killers, which I loved, and Training Day, which I liked, I decided to give it a chance.
I was wrong. Olympus Has Fallen is not for me. It is pure action filled with tropes and none of the complexities in plot development as The Equalizer or unique characters featured in King Arthur, The Replacement Killers, and Training Day. Why does the action hero always end up married to a woman in the medical profession? Godzilla, Imposter, Sum of All Fears, etc. Subsequently another movie came out which has a very similar plot, White House Down, which I now feel compelled to watch as a completist-I must watch all movies where the White House is in peril. Grrrrr. I had zero interest in watching it, but now I want to see who wore it better.
I haven’t found Gerald Butler hot since Dracula 2000. Morgan Freeman isn’t the president, but he becomes the voice of reasonable power. I love Angela Bassett, but she isn’t given much to do except be Angela Bassett. You think that Aaron Eckhart is going to do something, but it is all set up and no fulfillment. The most notable and stirring part of the film focuses on the character Secretary of Defense Ruth McMillan, played by the magnificent Melissa Leo.
Disclaimer: I’m not a Hillary fan, but if a better candidate isn’t presented, I’ll end up voting for her and thus bring in the apocalypse. Cue the flying pigs and skating in hell. Olympus Has Fallen succeeds in answering the question of how a woman not serving in the military and with literally no typical attributes of physical power can be a leader in a time of military crisis. Her character is so nuanced and real that for me, she became the best part of Olympus Has Fallen. She is vulnerable, brave, and resistant in the face of certain defeat and fear.