Be in no doubt, London Has Fallen is a terrifically silly, over-the-top movie.
Yet it is so relentless, looks stylish and runs on a highly-combustible mixture of concentrated adrenaline and testosterone that it is difficult not to get a little swept up in the action.
Following on from 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen, Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart return as hardman bodyguard Mike Banning and hardman US President Benjamin Asher respectively.
Banning’s wife is expecting a baby and he is about to resign for a quiet life when the British Prime Minister dies and the President is obliged to join other world leaders in London for the funeral. So Banning stays on for one last job.
But as the leaders arrive at St Paul’s Cathedral, terrorists posing as police let rip and wipe out nearly all of the world’s most senior politicians and ‘most known landmarks in Britain’s capital’.
As one of the President’s advisers cannily observes after 15 minutes of sheer carnage: “it was a trap”.
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The prospect of a major terrorist incident is clearly frightening real, but London Has Fallen does not just imagine a worst-case scenario – it supersizes it then doubles it, and adds some more pyrotechnics.
Director Babak Najafi handles the explosive action well and London looks spectacular even in disaster, however overblown the scenario.
After the bad guys’ initial assault posing as police it is clear no-one is safe and Scotland Yard decide they can’t even send in the army.
“We risk turning London into another Fallujah,” says the head copper (interestingly only a chief inspector – was the Commissioner was on holiday?).
So it is down to the under-fire President and his bodyguard to not only avoid capture but take on the baddies on their own.
Gerard Butler, who also produced the movie, is a peculiar joy as Banning. He is a man so unyieldingly macho and hard-assed that he is even tough when drinking a glass of water (“I don’t know about you but I’m thirsty as f**k”).
It’s a fairly entertaining romp, if you can disregard some of its gung-ho politics.
In one memorable snippet, Banning pins a terrorist down and ‘quips’: “Why don’t you boys pack up your s**t and go back to ‘f**k-head’-stan or wherever you’re from?”
The dialogue sounds like it is designed to be full of the kind of witty zingers that stick in the memory – and it does, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
There are some lines that even Team America might have thought were too much. If at any point a character had said “America – f**k yeah”, it would not have seemed out of place.
We have reached peak ridiculousness by the time Banning storms into a terrorist HQ (in Soho, of course) that is swarming with guys who each have “more ammunition than the whole US army.”
“There’s more than 100 terrorists in there,” warns the chap from the SAS.
“Yeah, well they should have brought more men,” barks Butler.
No prizes for guessing how he gets on.
London Has Fallen will win no awards for realism but, as the Fast and Furious films have proved, that is not necessarily a barrier to a thrilling ride.
Devoid of much intelligence (and relentlessly pro-America), this is still a fast-paced, scenery-chewing, good-looking explosion-fest that will doubtless pick up a loyal fanbase.
London Has Fallen (15) is out Thursday, March 3.
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