Olympus has Fallen

Antoine Fuqua tries his hand at a new genre, battling Roland Emmerich's White House Down in a Deep Impact/Armageddon rivalry. Olympus has Fallen is more Deep Impact than Armageddon, and not just because Morgan Freeman plays the President. A hybrid Die Hard/Air Force One, the only thing missing is Bruce Willis or Harrison Ford. Instead, we get Aaron Eckhart and Gerard Butler. In his defense, Butler does action very well, but I get tired of him trying to hide his Scottish accent in a painfully artificial "Hey, I'm an American Secret Service guy" way.

The film begins as predictable as you can get. Eckhart is the President, running for re-election, and Butler is his protector and best friend (and boxing sparring buddy, and role model of his son, and secret crush of his wife...yuck). Through a series of events, the wife dies and Butler's Mike Banning is blamed, relegating him to a desk job because the sight of him is just too painful for the President to handle. They never get back to this plot point in the future of the film, which is a bit odd because it's a pretty critical piece of the story. Oh well.

A Korean terrorist (why is this the big hot enemy right now?) then stages what can only be described as an absolute bloodbath of an action scene in which the White House is decimated and taken over, sending the President and his entire staff into a bunker where they are forced to activate nukes.

The Secret Service, capitol police, and even military have no response for this, being just one of the unbelievable pieces of the film. Banning finds himself alone in the White House, killing bad guys and trying to save the President. Just like John McClaine, he has to kill baddies in fun and interesting ways, and he has to deliver a witty, but painfully cliche line each time he does.

In a sub plot, Banning's wife is a nurse, and frankly doesn't really have a place in this movie. It was a terrible relationship with no chemistry and didn't go far enough to be worth keeping. Should have been cut (sorry Radha Mitchell).

The action is absolutely absurd. Fuqua makes Michael Bay look like an amateur (ok, not really) as he blows up everything he can. I can just imagine him at the budget meeting salivating over how much stuff he can explode.

The cast is stacked with veterans, and I was personally happy to see a bigger, badder Cole Hauser reunited with Fuqua (Tears of the Sun) after falling off the face of the earth for a few years. He's got a couple of projects lined up, so expect to see more of him, possibly a real comeback. Oscar winner Melissa Leo is awful (and unrecognizable) as the Secretary of Defense, given such patriotic lines that it adds some levity to the torture, action, and violence. Sad really. Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, and a very brief appearance by Ashley Judd round out the cast that is clearly in it for the paycheck.

Enough skewering. For all of its flaws, the film was respectable. I appreciate Fuqua pushing the envelope on this one. I didn't enjoy it, but I appreciated it. This is a hybrid disaster/cautionary tale story. Exploiting a frightening scenario, however improbable. Fuqua knew that to do this like Bay or Emmerich wouldn't be enough, so he went with the R rating and the blood. I get it, he's an edgy director. There were times though, that I felt like it was gratuitous. I must be getting old.

The action was great; fights, special effects, use of technology, and explosions. The plot however was pretty shallow and flavorless. The characters were dull, and their decisions were constantly impotent, erroneous, and unrealistic. Butler however, was pretty fun to watch. The revenge factor was high once he started his rampage, and as awful as his one-liners were, they were kind of fun.

I can't recommend this film, but if you're curious, and you like violence and action, it's a bit of a ride. Skip the full price and see a matinee. Or better yet, wait until it's on Netflix and pop some corn on a Friday night. It's making a ton of money, and has gotten some great reviews, which is baffling. I'd love to know what you thought. 5/10.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey come together for a long overdue film about competing Vegas magicians in a world where sleight of hand and catchy musical routines isn't what draws the crowd anymore. Audiences want danger and pain. Jack-ass and David Blaine. It has all of the lights and magic of Vegas without much substance to the story.

Carrell plays Burt Wonderstone, a man infatuated with parlor tricks and classic magic. He's a relic, and the Teller to his Penn, Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) is his only friend in the lonely and fake glitz of Las Vegas. His show takes on a redundancy that leaves the audiences less than thrilled, and the hotel and casino owner begins to lose his faith in the iconic illusionist.

Olivia Wilde goes along for the ride, as the unbelievably hot magic-nerd-at-heart who inspires Burt to get his mojo back. A great supporting cast of Alan Arkin, James Gandolfini, Jay Mohr (as Rick the Implausible), and the master of magic himself, David Copperfield round out the film, but the true star is the resurgence of 1990's comic icon Jim Carrey.

Carrey (Steve Gray) channels the edgy, Hollywood street magician with his guerrilla street performances dubbed "brain rape". It is funnier than you would think. Carrey is the high point of an otherwise mediocre film with lots of predictable gags, and Carrell simply going through the motions. He didn't even truly appear to be enjoying himself like he usually does. That's part of the fun of Carrell movies is that he is having fun being his character. This role felt more like a paycheck.

Jim Carrey hasn't done a quality role since 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and it appears that he might be back. Maybe it was the Jenny McCarthy years that put him into a funk, but if the previews of Kick-Ass 2 show us anything, his role of Colonel Stars and Stripes might be the highlight of the movie. 2014 will be a big year for him as well with Dumb and Dumber To, and Loomis Fargo - a comedy about an armored car heist from the director of Napoleon Dynamite. Very intriguing.

Director Don Scardino is a longtime TV director, but it's his first feature film. It's not a tv to film transition that makes stars, but the direction isn't the problem. The premise is great, but the problem is that Vegas comedies are becoming overdone, or maybe it's just me. Writer John Francis Daley on the other hand, is a star in the making. I had a nice conversation with his girlfriend and her mom at the Horrible Bosses premier, and he's been busting out scripts like crazy over the last couple of years. He wrote Horrible Bosses 2, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and the upcoming Vacation remake (I know what you're thinking, but it's Ed Helms and Christina Applegate, so it will work).

The film fails with too much character depth. We get a glimpse into the past of Burt and Anton, and are shown why they became magicians. It's cliche, and is admittedly funny, but also stale. As the story progresses, Olivia Wilde's character just doesn't fit. She is pretty funny in her own right, and does comedy much better than drama (Deadfall = awful), but it might be more of a vehicle to preview her chops and set her up as one of the comedy leading ladies. Her relationship with Jason Sudeikis can't hurt things in that arena.

Fortunately, for a very average film, the last few minutes are hilarious. It's not quite a blooper reel as much as the behind the scenes glimpse at their big magic act. All in all, it's not as good as you would think based on the cast, and there are definitely some funny moments, but Carrell seems uninspired. 6/10.