London Has Fallen (2016), R, ★★

Gerard Butler is back as the Scottish John McClane.

90s hard-R action! Hell, yeah! Well, that's what I've missed. Authentic, stupid fun. People would want to go to action movie to be pleasantly surprised by the explosions, the villains and the sequences that all the filmmakers have gone through with a grand budget. However, lately, is there been an action star besides Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or Tom Cruise? Those types of stars seem to wane as we further down into more superhero territory and into more territories in which we vamp up a genre. Gerard Butler has proven that up to his potential, however, this latest movie seems to vamp up so many explosions and so much action that the plot goes out the window and it is not as entertaining.

A terrorist mastermind named Aamir Barkawi (Alon Aboutboul) is allegedly responsible for the bombings in Europe. The U.S. government launches a drone strike against his compound and supposedly kills Barkawi and his family. However, in Yemen, two years later, Barkawi is still alive, planning with his son, Kamran (Waleed Zuaiter), beginning to set motion plans in revenge for the death of his family.

Meanwhile, President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and his top Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) are both informed that the British Prime Minister, James Wilson, has passed away. They, along with Asher's staff, Vice President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) and Secret Service Director Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett) travel to London to join the world leaders for the Prime Minister's funeral. Believing it to be secured, Banning thinks something's fishy. They are proven wrong when Barkawi's mercenaries attack London as they also hit London's landmarks too.

We're on the move.

This is Die Hard: with a Vengeance in another location, with another terrorist taking the helm and with more explosions. It is not as interesting and it is too bombastic. This is another cash-grab with Middle Easterns taking over the terrorist roles as the North Koreans were defeated in its predecessor. I do admit that I liked Olympus Has Fallen despite some preachy dialogue and some very dark cinematography. But, one man alone in the white house in a hard-R action movie. I was back in the 90s, baby. However, with this movie, the stakes are vague as the villain wants to simply state that vengeance must be absolute. What?!?!? We get it. Someone in London attacked you or one of the leaders attacked you.

Gerard Butler is proven to be an actor for action pictures but somehow is dialed down to the good guy being unstoppable with killing everybody on point and also saying one-liners like "Get to the chopper!" And, also, his dialogue relies heavily on the profanity that somehow is not quite inserted or timed right with the action. Aaron Eckhart is there for the running and the fitness and oh, being held hostage once again. Morgan Freeman can still do no wrong with his gravitas. The actors playing the villains are weak in this movie. They are utterly forgettable.

Why am I giving this movie more benefit of the doubt meaning why am I giving this movie two stars than one star? At times, I grinned like an idiot enjoying the cartoonish and bloody action but the CGI looked messy and pretty disastrous. Director Babak Najafi has an eye for crafting the action sequences well but not staging them properly. It's really just stunts and spectacle for the eyes and I said it, the stakes are weaker compared to the first movie. I advise y'all to run from the movie theater that is showing this movie and watch Die Hard or maybe the first movie again.

**