Whether you want an action movie (think Die Hard) or you simply like eye candy (Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Dylan McDermott are totally delicious), this movie won’t disappoint.
Director Fuqua (Training Day et al) doesn’t waste any time bringing the viewer to the edge of their seat – within 10 minutes we are rooting for Special Agent Mike Banning (Butler). Forced to make a life or death decision for the President of the United States, he knows his own life will never be the same.
Fast forward a year, Banning watches something so horrific unfold outside his “desk job” window he can hardly believe his eyes. He suddenly becomes “the best hope we’ve got” at taking back the White House and freeing the President who has been kidnapped by terrorists – hundred sof them, who were hiding in plain sight. Walking and working among the landscape of Washington DC, completely unnoticed. His chance for atonement was our darkest hour.
I stared in shock as I watched tourists become terrorists and trash trucks explode. I couldn’t help but think “could this really happen?” Because Olympus was shot over a year ago, it seemed surreal to watch the White House crumble at the hands of North Korean terrorists. That hit a little too close to home in our current political environment.
Lots of carnage & fantastic special effects abound.
Gerard Butler carries the movie with all the self sacrifice you would expect from a true Secret Service Agent.
Olympus makes you proud to be an American. No one shouts patriotism louder than Oscar winner Melissa Leo as our Secretary of Defense, who says “The Pledge of Allegiance” as she is being dragged through the dead bodies of her colleagues.
The only criticism I have is the casting of Morgan Freeman as Speaker of the House. He seemed too old and too tired. I wish Fuqua would have brought Denzel Washington along for the ride.
I felt a little skittish walking to the car when it ended. I nervously avoided strangers, actually wondering if someone was about to pull out an assault rifle. In other words, I found the movie pretty believable.
Intense
Brutal
Worth It
I give this a 7 out of a 10 (I don't like silly jokes in the middle of a terrorist takeover, and I really REALLY dislike seeing people stabbed in the eyeball)
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