London Has Fallen

For F*** Magazine

LONDON HAS FALLEN

Director : Babak Najafi
Cast : Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Charlotte Riley, Morgan Freeman, Robert Forster, Melissa Leo, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 99 mins
Opens : 3 March 2016
Rating : NC-16 (Violence And Some Coarse Language)

The city of London: between being decimated by a tungsten rod fired from orbit in G.I. Joe: Retaliation and having Dubai’s Burj Khalifa plonked down on it by aliens in the upcoming Independence Day: Resurgence, it seems Hollywood’s been saying “screw Britannia!” Another round of U.K. landmark destruction is preceded by the untimely death of the British Prime Minister. World leaders, including U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart), arrive for the state funeral. In the lead-up to the funeral, a brutal, intricately-planned terrorist attack cripples London, and Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler) is the only thing keeping Asher alive. Back in Washington D.C., Vice President Alan Trumbull (Freeman) receives a video message from terrorist mastermind Aamir Barkawi (Aboutboul), claiming responsibility for the attacks. Asher and Banning have to rendezvous with MI6 agent Jacquelin Marshal (Riley) as the chaos escalates and terrorists overrun London.

            London Has Fallen is the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, a film that was generally regarded as taking itself way too seriously, hilariously jingoistic, containing slipshod visual effects work but boasting a decent amount of brutal action. London Has Fallen contains all those traits and kicks them up to 11. There’s an increased sense of scale and the location shooting in London itself means the production values here are an improvement on those of its predecessor. However, in scenes including the destruction of Chelsea Bridge and a sequence in which the presidential helicopters Marines One, Two and Three are evading terrorists’ rockets, the visual effects work is nigh laughable.  

The over-the-top bombast is supposed to be thrilling, but there will be many audiences who will have a difficult time deriving entertainment from seeing terrorists blow up a city, particularly given the tragic frequency with which such incidents occur in real life. Paris, Beirut, Tunis, Istanbul, San Bernadino and Jakarta amongst others were all recently attacked and furthermore, the trailer for London Has Fallen was released during the week of the tenth anniversary of the 2005 7/7 London bombings. We don’t mean to get all self-righteous and this reviewer is a big action movie junkie, but the way London Has Fallen presents itself as topical while revelling in dated action movie tropes, with a one-man army stabbing bad guys and dispensing one-liners, is a little uncomfortable.

It’s pretty funny that this flag-waving, chest-thumping celebration of American jingoism is directed by a Swedish director of Iranian descent and stars an actor who is completely incapable of disguising his unmistakably Scottish brogue. As far as London Has Fallen is concerned, all world leaders are entirely expendable – ersatz versions of Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi and François Hollande bite the dust in quick succession – all except for the American president, of course. The primary villain, a Middle-Eastern arms dealer, seems like a C-grade reject from the TV series Homeland. And yes, drone strikes are a plot point, because total predictability is the name of the game here. At the very least, the villainous scheme is an order of magnitude more plausible than that of the North Korean baddies in Olympus Has Fallen, though that’s still not saying much.

Butler and Eckhart lead a good number of actors who reprise their roles from Olympus Has Fallen. Sure, Butler is completely unbelievable as an American, but he and Eckhart develop a watchable buddy chemistry and Butler’s rough-around-the-edges quality makes him easier to buy as an old-school action hero than other actors out there. Many attempts at badass quips simply come off as silly, but the guy looks like he knows what he’s doing when he’s firing a gun. Bassett isn’t in much of the film and Freeman, Forster and Leo simply sit around the Situation Room back at the White House; their scenes looking like they were all filmed in one day. Jackie Earle Haley as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff is puzzling casting, since the actor isn’t allowed to display any of the quirky energy he’s known for. Riley’s MI6 agent could’ve been a scene stealing character, but God forbid anyone other than Butler kick a significant amount of ass.

Is London Has Fallen enjoyable at all? Yes. It’s fun to guffaw at the clunky lines of dialogue, to appreciate some of the action sequences for being well-executed and others for looking hilariously phony and to pretend that it’s still the 80s-90s, cheering on the clench-jawed hero who charges in guns a-blazing. The clichés are so on-the-nose – for example, Banning’s wife Leah (Mitchell) is pregnant with their first child, pining for the safe return of her husband – it’s impossible to assume the filmmakers didn’t go into this with at least the slightest modicum of self-awareness. Most of all, it’s enjoyable in its thunderous stupidity and those 99 minutes go by fairly quickly.

Summary: This action thriller is often breathtakingly dumb and the “terrorist attacks in the name of entertainment” angle is problematic in this day and age, but the sheer lack of subtlety is enjoyable in its own right. U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Edge of Tomorrow

For F*** Magazine

EDGE OF TOMORROW

Director : Doug Liman
Cast : Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson, Kick Gurry, Dragomir Mrsic, Charlotte Riley, Jonas Armstrong, Franz Drameh
Genre : Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Opens : 6 June 2014
Rating : PG13

It’s like this: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Major Bill Cage (Cruise) learns this the hard way, forced onto the frontlines against his will. In the near future, Europe has been invaded by a vicious alien species called the Mimics, and former ad man and PR guy Cage hasn’t the first clue how to fight them. He has no idea how to work his Jacket exo-suit and dies in battle, but reawakens, living the whole day over again. Over the course of several “tries”, he realises he is caught in a time loop, and seeks out the help of Rita Vrataski, a seasoned warrior nicknamed “The Angel of Verdun”. Through lots of trial and error and under the tutelage of Rita, Cage starts to get the hang of it, figuring out how to outwit the Mimics in the hopes of winning the war.

            It’s like this: at first glance, Edge of Tomorrow, based on the light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, looks pretty generic. Once you’ve seen one military sci-fi action alien invasion flick, you’ve seen them all, right? Director Doug Liman knows you’re thinking this, he knows his audience will be familiar with all the genre has to offer, and so he deconstructs the clichés and turns them on their heads. Despite superficial evidence to the contrary, Edge of Tomorrow is fresh and inventive, Liman and co. having unearthed new, exciting elements with which to elevate what could have been loud, dumb, derivative blockbuster fare. There’s a propulsive energy combined with just enough self-awareness, the screenplay by Christopher MacQuarrie with sibling team Jez and John-Henry Butterworth an unexpectedly humorous one.

            It’s like this: Edge of Tomorrow looks a lot more conventional than last year’s Tom Cruise-starring sci-fi action movie Oblivion, but it winds up being the more creative and entertaining of the two. We’ve seen soldiers in robotic exoskeleton suits in everything from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra to District 9, so that’s not where Edge of Tomorrow stands out design-wise. The look of the Mimics is what gives this film the edge over other alien invasion films in recent memory. Remember how utterly bland the aliens looked in Battleship? Here, we have angry-looking bundles of spiky roots, lashing out and striking with alarming speed and ferocity. These are genuinely scary opponents that are a lot of fun to watch in action. The film’s central beachhead battle is also a refreshing change of locale from the city centres in which such wars are often fought in the movies. From a helicopter crash in a barn to a training arena in which spinning metal blades stand in for the Mimics, the action sequences are consistently terrific and eye-catching.

            It’s like this: Tom Cruise has remained a brand name A-lister for well over 20 years and once again proves why. Instead of being an invincible badass, his Bill Cage starts the movie as a vulnerable, unwilling fighter way out of his depth, someone who tries to charm his way out of combat duty but who is unable to. Just as it was satisfying seeing Bill Murray get better and better at playing the piano or ice carving with every successive February 2^nd, it is satisfying seeing Bill Cage gradually grow into a skilled warrior. It seems Cruise has set some of his ego aside, allowing for several amusingly ignominious death scenes early on.

It’s like this: Emily Blunt isn’t who most moviegoers would pin as the next Sigourney Weaver, but darned if she doesn’t kick a whole lot of ass in this movie. The ever-versatile Blunt is able to sell not only Rita’s physical toughness, but her determination and steely demeanour as well. In the interplay between her and Cruise, the Romancing the Stone-style screwball comedy is kept to a suitable level, and the lengths he goes to in order to win her trust and respect are admirable. Bill Paxton does a funny, sly parody of “tough blowhard drill sergeant” types, and Squad J, the group of soldiers Cage is forced to join, are reminiscent of the Colonial Marines from Aliens in the best way possible.

            It’s like this: Edge of Tomorrow takes the time loop, what might be considered a tiresome gimmick, and uses it to give what would already have been a decent sci-fi action flick that extra something. It’s well-paced, it’s well-acted, the action and the spectacle is engaging and immersive and it’s just about the best use of 3D we’ve seen in a live-action feature this year thus far. This puts recent attempts at military-centric alien invasion movies like Battle: Los Angeles and the afore-mentioned Battleship to absolute shame. We didn’t quite expect Edge of Tomorrow to be this clever, this adrenaline-pumping and this much darn fun.

Summary: It’s like this: go see the most invigorating action sci-fi film in recent memory today rather than tomorrow.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong