Olympus Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen and, let me tell you, there is not enough erectile dysfunction medication in the galaxy to get it back up.  Is this movie about a falling out with your sparring partner?  Is it a touching story of an adult man’s vaguely disturbing concern for the president’s kid?  Is it a hot mess of crap trying to pluck at your patriotic heartstrings so hamfistedly that you’ll cry bacon juice?  I don’t know.

But I do know this:  you’d think that with a line up like Aaron Eckhart, Gerard Butler, and a bit of Dylan McDermott that keeping Olympus up wouldn’t be an issue.  Yet it is.  Morgan Freeman is in this manly embarrassment, too, and he doesn’t seem very happy about it.  You can’t blame him.

The movie opens with Eckhart (as U.S. President Benjamin Asher) and his family getting ready for some winter holiday party or appearance or something.  You can tell everyone loves each other a whole hell of a lot and there’s still passion in them there fires.  Apparently, how well the president loves his family is the major criteria for being a “good” president.  As that’s pretty much the only thing we have to judge him on as a president.  Soon, they’re all off in their limos and SUVs and to grandmother’s houBAM!  A crash.  Gerard Butler whose job it is, as a Secret Service agent, to guard the president decides to…well…do his job and save the president’s life.  And the president’s wife dies.  Right after exchanging holiday gifts in the back of a limo because, goldurnit, that’s the American president way.

Under president Asher, doing one’s job is grounds for demotion and Butler’s character, Mike Banning (a name that almost oozes testosterone), is demoted to security for STD or FTD or some odd branch of the Secret Service that involves tossing a koosh ball against your monitor. But he’s still friends with the director of the Secret Service (played by Angela Bassett).

While the president is meeting with the prime minister from Korea in the Oval Office, a retrofitted cargo plane (it sure looks like that) is in Washington DC air space and it’s got guns.  This magic cargo plane of shootiness is so fantastically terrific that it has a higher kill rate while flying overhead than armed soldiers on the ground.  It’s killing tourists and officers in bullet-proof vests and just pretty much everyone – all while FENDING OFF THE U.S. AIR FORCE!  Killing everyone except Mike Banning, that is – the one person running around in slacks and a shirt (pretty sure he’s not even wearing a t-shirt).  Oh, and it doesn’t kill the busload of Korean tourists.  Because this terror from beyond space and time retrofitted heap of junk (it honestly does look more like a Lockheed C-130 Hercules though the may have been going for the look of a Lockheed AC-130, than anything capable of precise and widespread killing) is just that goshdarned good and apparently got a gold star in target practice.

The president and a bunch of high-ranking people are shuffled off to the super secret bunker hidden in the bowels of the White House.  And they bring the Korean visitors with them!  Could that be a bad idea?  Let’s see!

In the secret bunker, shit goes sideways.  A couple three of the Korean guys start killing people, including the Korean prime minister.  The president and a bunch of other people you don’t care about are hogtied and Kang (yes, really, Kang) and his small gang are in charge.  It’s never really clear what the motivations are beyond “my mommy died, you Americans and Korea grrr <fist of rage>” – there’s nothing really political or personal or anything motivational enough to rise to the level of taking down the White House.  Just a pissed off guy with mommy issues.  Oh, and Kang has a sexy female computer nerd to help him out with his master plan of turning America into a nuclear wasteland by blowing up our own nuclear weapons while they’re in their silos!

In order to carry out this nefarious plan, Kang (you know, that name just feels like it should have an exclamation mark after it so, henceforth, it will) needs the three CERBERUS codes.  (In some half-assed logic that only a government or a movie director could come up with, having the codes that disarm the missiles can actually be used to blow up the country.  DON’T ASK QUESTIONS!  THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT PATRIOTIC AMERICANISM AND OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN!)  Three different people have a code.  All three of them are in the bunker.  Dylan McDermott is also in the bunker.  We saw him earlier sparring with the president.  Turns out Dylan McDermott is a traitor.  Kang! wants the codes.  Kang! starts killing people to prove it (there is a helluva lot of gore porn in this movie, actually).  The secretary of the Navy has one of them.  Kang! threatens to slit his throat if he doesn’t give it up.  The president hollers “TELL HIM THE CODE!  HE’LL NEVER GET MINE! I AM AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND A HERO CAN’T YOU HEAR THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER PLAYING? TELL HIM, MAN!”  (Maybe not exactly that, but pretty close and still better dialog than in the actual movie.)  And the secretary finally complies when the president issues a direct order.  Kang!’s sexy computer assistant enters it into the computer.

Meanwhile, Mike Banning is running around worrying about finding the president’s son and kicking ass and killing a bunch of Koreans who broke into our White House (turns out that those tourists were part of Kang!’s coterie).  It’s like Mike Banning is the brawny love child of Jason Statham and Bruce Willis.  Hmm…um…oh my…um…wonder if Santa could fit that down the chimney…hmmmmm…where was I?

Oh, yeah.  Movie review.  Sorry about that.

Then Kang! needs the second code from the secretary of defense.  But this one’s a woman, so we won’t threaten to slit her throat.  We’ll just smack her around and kick her because it’s a lot more angrily abusive looking than just holding a knife to a throat.  (There’s some serious misogyny in this movie.)  The president hollers “TELL HIM THE CODE!  HE’LL NEVER GET MINE! I AM AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND A HERO CAN’T YOU HEAR THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER PLAYING? TELL HIM, WOMAN!”  (Maybe not exactly that, but pretty close and still better dialog than in the actual movie.)  And the secretary finally complies when the president issues a direct order.    Kang!’s sexy computer assistant enters it into the computer.

Sadly, while our president was busy saving the lives of secretaries, he wasn’t being very smart.  Turns out that with two of the codes, a computer running cracking software, and a sexy geek assistant, you don’t even need the third code.  But why would they go through all of this if they could just do that with the other two codes, too?  DON’T ASK QUESTIONS!  THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT PATRIOTIC AMERICANISM AND OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN!

During all of this, there are a lot of scenes of a serious Morgan Freeman as the acting president, and Angela Bassett, and a bunch of other bureaucratic types trying to get this thing under control and conversing with Mike Banning about the president’s kid or the president or tattoos and more killing.  There’s a scene of a tattered American flag being ripped down from atop the White House which is supposed to make your patriotic heart skip a beat and your eye juice to leak a little.  I’ll admit it, my eye juice did leak a little.  From laughing.  “Here’s a bunch of gore porn and several actors and a magic cargo plane of shootiness and now here’s something to gives you a sad.”  Jeesh.

The Air Force is finally showing up!  But wait!  Kang! has a super top secret weapon installed in the White House.  But, in a bit of dialog with one of the bureaucrats and Morgan Freeman, we find out that the U.S. is the only country with this technology.  So, how did Kang! get it and get it installed in the White House?  Or if he didn’t, why didn’t the Secret Service/Department of Defense/”cleaning lady who is really a mad killing machine in charge of defending everything presidential” use that awesome thing to blow up the magic cargo plane of shootiness or the tourist bus of non-tourists (hmm…terrorists + tourists = terrourists)?  DON’T ASK QUESTIONS!  THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT PATRIOTIC AMERICANISM AND OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN!

A bunch of other stuff happens.  The highlight of which is watching the secretary of defense being dragged down a hall (in a camisole and a skirt) while hollering the Pledge of Allegiance.  (Spoiler: she lives.)  Dylan McDermott hollers at the president something like “Why shouldn’t I sell out?  How much does a presidency cost?  $500 million?  You’re the one that sold out….”  Then goes off to try and kill Mike Banning.  As if the government hadn’t been tainted by money and lobbyists for decades before.  The incredulity it is stretched.

All the stereotypically good people we stereotypically care about live.  All the stereotypically bad people die (although Kang! was pretty sexy in a crazy kind of way).  Except for maybe the sexy computer geek – not really clear what happened to her.  Mike Banning saves the presidential offspring.  President’s wife is still dead.  Mike Banning gets his old job back or something.

Then president Asher makes some half-assed patriotic speech and there’s a shot of Old Glory once again flying proudly above the White House.

The end.

Good cast. Potentially good storyline.  Really had potential.  This movie would have been so much better if it had some actual feeling behind it, if it didn’t play so heavily upon gore porn and Asian stereotypes, if it even bothered to flesh out a few things (like why anyone did anything in this movie), had a few scenes of all the men shirtless, or just including a few scenes of Zeus fighting leprechauns.

Apartment 1303

This Apartment 1303 is a U.S. remake (that term is used very loosely) of a Japanese movie by the same name and an excellent example of how not to make a horror movie.  Read this review.  Then watch the Japanese one.

One of the criteria of making a horror movie is…um…horror.  And it’s, you know, right there in the genre name.  It would appear that some movie makers need help with remedial reading because the cover art/poster for this production is scarier than anything in the movie.  Admittedly, it is possible that, some time in the last few days, the definition of “horror movie” changed and now means “a movie we made while simultaneously studying for the California bar exam and discussing Keynesian economics”.  They also tacked on an “in 3D” – I guess to try and sell it.  But even in 3D, it would have only been one more dimension of awful.  Fortunately for you, I watched it in 2D and was only able to absorb two whole dimensions of awful.

The movie is set in Detroit.  This movie did you no favors, Detroit.  Especially as it was filmed in Montreal and the exterior shots did look nice.  Why Detroit is the setting is unknown.  Location doesn’t really play any role in the film – outside of the apartment.  It could have been set in Montreal.

In addition to Detroit or Montreal or whatever, the movie also stars Rebecca De Mornay as Maddie Slate.  Maddie is an award-winning singer (we can tell from the gold record clock next to the fireplace that’s in nearly all of her scenes) and abusive drunk with two daughters:  Janet (played by Julianne Michelle) and Lara (played by Mischa Barton).  In one tiny bit of originality, I’ll give the movie credit for making the abusive drunk parent a woman.

The movie starts with 24-year-old Janet moving out of the house into her OMG MY FIRST APARTMENT EVAR!  An apartment which, from the exterior, looks like a housing project (which is supported somewhat by the lobby and elevator interiors).  But apartment 1303 is fabulous (really, it is – in the context of what the rest of the building looks like)!  And it’s only $750 a month!

So, Janet moves in.  Then there are some scenes of Lara and abusive drunk mom.  Then we’re back in Janet’s apartment where she pathetically implores her boyfriend (secret undercover cop!) to come over.  At which time they engage in one of the worst sex scenes ever that, basically, involves them knocking over cheap furniture, Janet saying sexy things like “Oh, I’ve been a bad girl.  I deserve to be punished”, etc.  The scene is unnecessarily violent.  Probably as some weird attempt to let the audience know that these kids have real Passion-with-a-capital-P.  It is also unnecessarily disturbing for some reason.  Maybe the actress looks too young.  And it doesn’t tie into the movie otherwise.  Just your random sex scene that isn’t sexy, isn’t well done, isn’t necessary, and isn’t something I want to see again.

Afterward, asshole boyfriend leaves and Janet takes a header off the balcony.  And you realize you don’t mind too much because you just didn’t like her any way.  At this point of the movie, most viewers are thinking, “Great! Now maybe we can get on with some horror stuff!”  The rest of the viewers have shown good sense and left the country entirely.

Then there’s more stuff with drunk mom.  Who, at one point, sings a bit of some song she wrote for now-dead-Janet.  Remember: she’s supposed to be a successful award-winning singer <insert shot of Maddie with gold record clock in background here> with oodles of money, so why they thought Rebecca De Mornay could (or should) sing is one of the biggest horrors (and mysteries) of this movie.  Of course, in the last few days, the definition of “successful, award-winning singer” could have changed to mean something like “here let me swallow some razor blades and Jim Beam and croon my heart out to you”.

Then Lara (pronounced, variously throughout as “Laura” or “Lara” – who knows…let’s blame Montreal!) who is penniless and seems to have some job as a waitress (and let’s randomly throw in some allusions to either mental or drug problems) decides to move into Janet’s place because “I wanna know what happened to may baby sister!”.  (Lara is older than Janet, and Janet was 24.  Yet it’s Lara’s bedroom at home that looks like she’s 13 and has cool shit like “Love is punker than punk” in some faux artsy-fartsy way above her bed.  Maybe Lara never grew up – even though she looks ridden hard and hung out to dry?  The director never explains so why care?)

Well, some spooky stuff starts happening – basically just noises and “ewww – what’s that smell?” (welcome to Detroit, honey).  Somewhere along the way, we find out some mother and daughter died in the apartment and are haunting it because they don’t want anyone else to live there.  (Seriously?  A mother/daughter ghost team?  Haunting an apartment in the projects?  IN DETROIT?  Talk about suspension of disbelief.)

Naturally, Janet’s boyfriend/undercover cop decides to help out Lara because there’s just not enough real crime in Detroit…or something.  More shit happens, he goes over the balcony.  Or gets stabbed.  Or maybe just walks off the set in disgust.  I don’t remember.  Because I was given no reason to care for him.  Or any of the other characters.

More shit happens and Lara gets arrested for murder because “apartments don’t kill people, people kill people”.  OH MY GOD!  Thank you for clearing that up for me.  And to think of all the time I’ve wasted trying to outlaw apartments because of the hideous acts they perpetrate on people – hideous acts like this movie.

A dull, hacky retread of stuff that isn’t even scary or suspenseful – this is one movie that won’t automatically exercise your kegels.  Bland movie, bland characters, nothing’s sufficiently explained (unless you count “the entire floor is haunted” as an explanation), some nice exterior shots of Montreal.  That’s about it.

The only rating I can give this movie is:  baby-poop brown.  Because that’s the only thing that comes to mind when thinking about it.

This movie is highly recommended if you happen to be an alcoholic, washed up singer in Detroit who is considering becoming a mom.  Or if your moving to Montdetroit or Detroitreal or whatever.

Apartment 1303 poster