I was really excited about this movie when it was first announced. You know why? The title. The bullshit misleading title. This is a sequel to Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen and, when I heard the title Angel Has Fallen, I naturally assumed that this would be about Gerard Butler defending heaven from an army of terrorists. I envisioned Butler and St. Peter mowing people down with 50 cal machine guns and screaming “eat the Lord’s lead, motherfuckers!” That movie, which exists only in my head, is fucking amazing. Unfortunately, this is not that movie. This movie kinda sucks.
This is the Taken 3 of the series, and Taken 3 is not exactly a strong benchmark for cinematic aspirations. Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is still guarding the president (Morgan Freeman, who is having a solid career trajectory since he was the vice president in the last one and speaker of the house in the first one). They are out on a fishing trip when the president is attacked by an army of drones and is hospitalized when the assassination attempt fails. Banning is framed for the attempt and everyone very easily accepts the notion that he is guilty despite how asinine that is in the context of the previous movies. He must clear his name while discovering the real culprit. You know, just like Taken 3. Fuck Taken 3.
The previous two Fallen movies aren’t exactly cinematic gold, but they are solid enough action movies that deliver exactly what I want in a flick like this: cartoonishly over-the-top violence. The first one was even directed by Antoine Fuqua, who also directed Training Day and The Equalizer. They are well-made throwbacks to the kind of stuff that Bruce Willis made in the early 90s. This one is a drastic step down in terms of both quality and silly entertainment value. Much like the 47 Meters Down sequel, this feels like something that should have gone straight to on-demand. This is so bland and by-the-numbers that it feels like something that Bruce Willis would make now. It’s almost brazenly unremarkable, if that makes any sense. Even Morgan Freeman, who could usually make a tax seminar interesting, seems like he is fighting off the urge to nap throughout the whole thing. Even the violence is almost completely gone. In the first two movies, any lull is quickly broken up by Butler shooting someone in the face. This just drags on and on with nary a motherfucker to be found to shoot in the face. It’s goddamn depressing.
I also really hate the “framed hero must clear his name” plot. This has been done a million fucking times and it almost always sucks. You know, like Taken fucking 3. Here is a hint about how to identify the bad guy in one of these movies. Did the movie introduce a best friend of the hero, even though that friend was never mentioned before or only appeared for 5 seconds in a previous movie? Guess what? That guy is the fucking villain. Every. Goddamn. Time. I call it the Halloween 6 rule. For the love of god, this kind of plot needs to die. I know who the villain is. Everyone in the fucking theater knows who the villain is. Stop it. Just fucking stop it. You’re not fooling anyone and I’m tired of this shit.
On the plus side, um, the acting is…..acceptable. Gerard Butler is basically the poor man’s Hugh Jackman at this point, but he can play this kind of role in his sleep (which he basically does here). The highlight of the movie, though, is crazy-ass Nick Nolte as Butler’s hermit, conspiracy-obsessed father. I’m not even sure if Nolte knows that he is in a movie here, but I will take an entire movie about off-the-grid, psycho Nolte over any of this other nonsense.
There are certain plots that signify when a series has run out of ideas. For horror movies, it’s when they go into the origin of the villain. For action movies, it’s when they do this framed-hero crap. It needs to stop and this series needs to end. Fortunately, if the comparison to Taken holds up, this should be the last one until the series gets rebooted in ten years. I’ll spend that time hoping the reboot involves heaven and grenade launchers because that is the Fallen movie that we deserve.
Image By:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Has_Fallen#/media/File:Angel_Has_Fallen_poster.jpg
