Back in 2013 moviegoing audiences were given two different “The President has been taken hostage” movies – one was OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN with Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart, the other was the oddly overlooked WHITE HOUSE DOWN with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. Both films featured great action sequences, but only OLYMPUS was daring enough to use R-rated violence and give moviegoers a throwback feel to the action films of decades past. It also fared much better at the box office, as it was the first to come out by a few months… it was in fact so successful that a sequel was greenlit, and now we’re treated to LONDON HAS FALLEN. Same cast, same sort of scenario, just a new location.

If for some reason you missed the first film, all you really need to know is Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Butler) is a bad-ass who saved the life of President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) during a lethal attack on the White House, and the two have stayed friends ever since. Banning is now expecting a child with his wife Leah (Radha Mitchell), and contemplating resigning from the service to be a daddy. When the British Prime Minister dies suddenly, the world leaders along with President Asher are requested to attend his funeral. The President’s Advisor Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett) suggests this sudden trip out of the country is too difficult to put together, but knows it is of great importance for the sake of appearances. So off they go to attend the funeral in London, and one by one the world leaders start getting violently picked off. Turns out arms dealer Kamran Barkawi (Waleed Zuaiter), his son and loyal followers want revenge for a drone strike that killed beloved members of the Barkawi family a few years back, and they’re using the funeral as a way to capture President Asher in the hopes of executing him live on the internet. As chaos hits London, important landmarks are destroyed, many are killed, and Mike Banning must once again protect the man he’s sworn to defend.

LONDON HAS FALLEN is directed by Babak Najafi, who does a good job staging the action sequences, and really captures the tough guy aspects of Gerard Butler’s character. But unlike OLYMPUS director Antoine Fuqua, he fails to capture any of the charm or coherency the first film managed to have. One of the biggest distractions of this new outing is the introduction of a ridiculous amount of folks, all with important sounding subtitles, but none of whom seem to be all that important or essential to the plot. All of the Presidential cabinet from the first movie return here, but few of them have anything to do other than watch the tragedies unfold and look on in horror. Oscar winner Melissa Leo is completely wasted in what is essentially a glorified cameo, and Jackie Earle Haley is back apparently just to look stressed out at the situation. It’s as if the studio went to a lot of trouble to get the entire cast of the first movie back, but only use three or four of them effectively.

Morgan Freeman returns as Vice President Trumbull, but basically just sits there in an observation room waiting for the outcome, while occasionally giving exposition on the bad guys or the present situation. Angela Bassett is given a little bit to do in the first half of the film, but only Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart are really utilized to any great effect. Butler is a likable enough hero, but there’s not much humanity to him in this outing. He’s just sort of going through the motions to get the job done. Since there were comparisons with his character in the first movie to Bruce Willis in the original DIE HARD, it’s important to note that one of the things that makes John McClane such a cool cat is his vulnerability and honesty. The role of Mike Banning is played a little too by the numbers, so Butler (here at least) feels more like a video game hero than a tough guy you can relate to. Eckhart tries to keep up, but he’s mostly just tagging along for the ride, which kind of plays out exactly how you’d expect it to with a few select moments of him stepping up to the plate in extreme situations. There’s also the unnecessary addition of an English MI-6 agent (Charlotte Riley) who ends up assisting Banning, and a plot thread involving a British official secretly helping the bad guys, all of which just seems to slow down what should have been a fairly simple rescue story. The final rescue sequence is easily the highlight of the film, but again feels like the final boss level of a video game more than anything.

LONDON HAS FALLEN is still quite entertaining as an action movie, it just doesn’t offer anything new or different. As a companion piece to OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, it’s not even that great of a follow-up, but at least it all looks familiar enough to where it should offer audiences some cinematic comfort food. One definite improvement from the first film is the special effects, which at points in OLYMPUS were almost laughable. Here, the effects shots are quite convincing for the most part, making scenes where major UK buildings are destroyed feel a little more important than some might expect. Please understand, I didn’t hate the film at all – I just wasn’t wowed by it, nor did I find it to be anything memorable. I guess I’ve come to expect more from action movies these days, which is difficult considering we’ve pretty much seen all the genre has to offer at this point… prove me wrong next time, Hollywood.

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