Here’s my review of White House Down. The plot, such as it is, involves a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sound familiar? Magic Mike himself plays John McClane, sorry Cale, an ex-military man turned body guard/driver for politician Raphelson, he’s played by the always excellent Richard Jenkins. A friend of Cale, who works in the White House, manages to get him an interview for a job as a Secret Service agent. The friend also provides 2 passes for Cale for a tour of the White House, which he desperately needs to make amends with and hopefully reconnect with his young daughter Emily. At the same time, terrorists dressed as employees seize control of the White House and it’s up to Cale to save the hostages and the President, he’s played by Jamie Foxx. What ensues is a paint by numbers action movie with guns, ass-kicking, quick one liners and explosions that only a director like Roland Emmerich can deliver. O.K. maybe Michael Bay could too. How does Emmerich follow up the destruction after 2012 you might ask? Let’s look at his track record. I’m not gonna name all his movies, but try to follow this path of mayhem. First he destroys the White House in Independence Day, then he demolishes New York City in Godzilla, thirdly he wipes out several cities with the weather in The Day After Tomorrow and finally he devastates planet Earth in 2012. Sequentially, he’s supposed to annihilate the universe or at the very least our milky way. But I guess we have to settle for the White House…again. He was also out to destroy both humanity’s past in 10,000 BC and William Shakespear’s reputation with Anonymous, but those don’t count. Now grant it Channing Tatum is not the world’s greatest actor, but he has an abundance of charisma and watching him exchange lines with Jamie Foxx is a blast and sometimes really funny. I was never a fan of the C.T, but after viewing his hilarious music video “I wanna Channing All Over Your Tatum”, I have to admit that I’m slowly warming up to the guy. Plus, the ladies get to watch him flex his muscles in a white wife beater shirt. All the bad guys have been to the Die Hard School for Terrorists and the surprise ring leader of the group is revealed way too early. There are some thrilling moments of action, high tech weaponry and some cool special FX, however there are way too many scenes of Tatum and Foxx climbing up an elevator shaft. This really slows down the film and a movie like this doesn’t need to catch its breath. Most plot twists are terribly predictable, except maybe one towards the end. The bottom line is that this is the very definition of a summer popcorn movie, if you embrace it as such, then you’ll have a good time. With Hollywood’s lack of originality, this is the second movie in the last 4 months about terrorists taking over the White House. If I had to pick between Olympus Has Fallen and this one, I’d pick White House Down.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 04:58:52 +0000
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