OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (2013) [Short Review]

NOTE: I previously promised a review about one of the latest Oscar-winners. Well, that was "Sykfall" and it still is on, if you wonder, I'm just throwing something other out earlier because the "Skyfall" review is still undergoing writing and control processes both.

NOTE 2: This is a short review, it gives a short overlook at the movie and the rating of it. A full review may or may not come in the future, after the movie is released on home media.

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FALL AS A NATION, RISE AS ONE... 

Olympus Has Fallen (2013) – SHORT REVIEW 

Image courtesy of Millennium Films, 2013.

Attention, cineastes. This is your final call for a chance of realizing a takeover of the White House. Not interested? Well, someone indeed was, resulting in this fantastic piece of action entertainment that can without a doubt be considered purely awesome. “Olympus Has Fallen” (OHF) is the first of two “Take the White House over and then having to free the President”-movies coming our way this year. The second one being “White House Down” by, hold your breath, Roland Emmerich (that guy from “2012”), starring Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum. But as it seems kind of obvious, Tatum is not good enough to copy Bruce Willis (he indeed does at least judging from his clothing in the trailer), so that one is set aside for now. 

Starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman, this movie has stars enough for a shoot-out movie and it cleverly uses them even though the story is, of course, simple and not too hard to see through. Then again, if you watch this sort of movies, did you really think there was a big story there to be found? What, however, is there to be seen is character background and not less of it as well which was both surprising and welcomed. This movie does a more than solid job introducing us to every major character, even during the action parts and it not once felt off-game. This was exemplary work here. 

The action itself was also one of the coolest things you’ve seen. While it’s nothing entirely new (Die Hard and so on, folks), it’s breath-taking – when those helicopters shot Washington down, you have to admit that was one of the greatest moments ever seen in movies – not because so many people were killed and injured, no, but because it was not glorified in a way that it felt like “hey, look how much blood we give you in the first minutes, aren’t we cool” (which is too often the case nowadays, sadly) but it felt tragic, realistic and yet gave stunning visuals which I’m definitely looking forward to check out in HD as that may be reference there. The destroyed White House was also a ruling visual and later on the touch of live executions was while fully to deem and brutal, it did the movie so good and even gave him the upper hand on other movies like this as “OHF” feels way more like a realistic scenario than any other depiction yet shared. 

The acting was as well more than solid and throughout the whole cast great. I loved Morgan Freeman as Acting President and Butler as the hero was the perfect choice. Eckhart delivered a solid job as well as did Rick Yune and any other cast member actually. 

Long things short: “OHF” may not be the new masterpiece of logic and original storytelling (then again, very few movies actually are) but what it did with what it had is exemplary and as a whole this movie was so damn fun and breath-taking to watch that it cannot be missed. If you like action movies like “Die Hard”, look no further, this is your new dope. “OHF” is in its own way fresh; a stunning action movie with more capabilities then you might think concerning story and character development and overall is just plain entertainment to sink into for nearly two hours. A definite must-see!  

5 stars out of five, perfect!