"Olympus Has Fallen" Review

The first of the two "White House invasion" flicks to come out this year suffers from being not as much fun as White House Down, the second of this pair to come out, but the one I saw first.

Gerard Butler serves as a Secret Service Agent to President Aaron Eckhart. (A white male President?! Wat?) After a bizarre auto accident claims the life of the First Lady, he's tossed of the President's detail for the sin of saving the President and not his wife. (Huh?) Some time later, while a Korean delegation is visiting the White House, an AC-130 gunship appears and opens fire on the White House while a simultaneous ground assault occurs. As he's evacuated to the Secret Underground Bunker, the President nobly commands the security to bring his guests along (yay!) only to discover too late that they're part of the attack force (whoops!).

With the White House, the President and many top Cabinet officials held captive - at least Morgan Freeman is able to step in as Acting President (whew, we're saved!) - it's a good thing there's a disgraced Secret Service agent willing to single-handedly take on over three dozen heavily armed attackers while others second-guess whether he can be trusted given his supposedly shameful past record. (No, I'm not kidding. These are the same clown characters who never trusted Jack Bauer on 24 either.)

Compared to White House Down, Olympus Has Fallen is darker, grittier, more bleakly violent and frankly less fun than the Tatum-Foxx flick. There are too many plot holes like what if the President had adhered to protocol and left the delegation to fend for themselves? Oh, and there's a traitor in the midst with an personal axe to grind again? Peachy. Both of these White House invasion movies were dopey and someone offensive, but at least White House Down had a brighter, more entertaining wrapping.

Score: 4/10. Catch it on cable.