Maggie Gyllenhaal is HORRIBLE is this. She is given a job that requires her to be in charge of a world changing situation and she basically squeals like a little girl throughout. I would have taken command from her in the first ten seconds of the crisis and sent her off to make sammiches for everyone else. The way they try to shoehorn a relationship between Tatum and Gyllenhaal is just annoying. The two have zero chemistry.
I saw the story coming down the street. One smart kid with a smart phone will provide the key information needed for the heroes to win the day. Joey King is a good kid actor and I actually liked her spunk.
Like Olympus Has Fallen it seems remarkably easy to take over the White House. I am always surprised it is not more heavily defended. Any hobo with a push cart can drop explosives dead center of the Capital Rotunda. Then how they get into the White House - well that was ridiculous. The second the Capitol blew up they should have had the President in his safe room but delayed that and gave the bad guys too much time to kill all the White House security staff.
You know exactly how everything is going to end because every story point is telegraphed way before it happens. For example, I knew that the daughter would stop calling her Dad by his first name once he saved her and everyone else's life. If you didn't think that would happen at the end then you have NEVER seen a motion picture.
The bad guys are made especially loathsome so that their eventual deaths would have meaning I guess. I know I have seen it all before and so have you. This is Die Hard for people who have never seen Die Hard and that is in no means a compliment.
And it seems like as long as Channing can run fast, he can avoid any and all bullets shot at him.
The movie is also about an hour too long and putting a child in danger for most of that time seems to be piling on.
James Spader is actually pretty good playing a variation of the crazy computer hacker character. I like how unpredictable he is throughout the film. I would have like to see more of him.
In the end it's not good but it's not bad either. It's just very, predictable.
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6 comments:
Yes, it was DIE HARD IN THE WHITE HOUSE, and Tatum is nowhere near as interesting or convincing as Bruce Willis.
Tatum is a potato. You could replace his role with a potato and it would be more interesting. Everything in this one was just OFF.
I remember when "Striptease" with Demi Moore came out. It was a pretty big hit, mainly because it was all about Demi Moore taking off her clothes. The next year, "G.I. Jane" came out, and was a tremendous flop. There was a lot of discussion about whether audiences were ready to accept women as action heroes, but I understood why it flopped: it lacked the thing that made "Striptease" awesome, i.e., Demi Moore in a sequined thong.
Jump forward sixteen years. Last year "Magic Mike" was a pretty big hit, mainly because it was built around Channing Tatum as a stripper. Now, a year later, the movie industry is aghast that "WHD" isn't pulling huge numbers, mainly because Tatum kept his pants on this time.
I heard it was pretty predictable. Plus, I don't think "White House Down" is a very imaginative title, not compared to "Olympus Has Fallen" anyway.
I hate the trope of "Implied Ability" like you're describing with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Its a weird gap between "This is how a person in this position would react" vs "This is how the audience needs to feel".
No real interest at all.
I remember Tatum's work from the first GI Joe movie... YUUUCCK!! He was the WORST part of the movie... I hate how he is simply eye candy for the ladies (and those dudes that like dudes as well..), and that is essentially it... His portrayal of Duke was so completely wooden, a piece of balsa wood would have done a better job...
I went to that piece of crap "Olympus Has Fallen" because it was the group's choice. Thank gawd no one has suggested this one yet. Barf! But at least it has a black prez.
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