Angel Has Fallen

Starring: Gerard Butler, Danny Huston, Morgan Freeman, Piper Perabo, Nick Nolte, Tim Blake Nelson, Lance Reddick, Ori Pfeffer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Joseph Millson
Directed by: Ric Roman Waugh
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Thriller
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is framed for an attempted assassination of the President. He's forced to escape custody to prove his innocence and uncover the conspiracy behind it.

Review:

Tim: The Has Fallen series has always felt like it punched above its weight class. Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen both had quite a few flaws, but managed to be enjoyable, exciting action thrillers. It was entertaining to watch the exploits of Mike Banning, even if the plots didn't make much logical sense. The success of those films propelled us here, to round out the trilogy with Angel Has Fallen. While I'd still consider this a decent movie, the flaws are even more visible here. This is clearly the weakest movie of the three.

In some ways, I do applaud the series for going in a slightly different direction. If this film was just another location, it would have probably felt repetitive. I'm not sure I loved the idea of Mike Banning being framed (his history would seem to suggest people would give him the benefit of the doubt), but it was at least a different twist. That was appreciated. On the other hand, it felt like this movie embraced advances in technology too much. I know we're living in futuristic times here, but too much of this film felt like science fiction. Perhaps a coordinated drone assassination like is depicted here is probable in 2019, but it didn't come across that way here. I would have loved either a more grounded story, or one that explained the futuristic technology in a way that was more believable. A lot of the film's credibility was hurt due to this.

The other being issue is that this movie is far too obvious and predictable. Before the film sets up all the players, it's abundantly obvious who the villain(s) are. There's no mystery, even though the film pretends like there is for a while. The entire script felt generic. I don't believe I could point to a single aspect of this movie that felt fresh or original. It's an amalgamation of pieces from better movies and Ric Roman Waugh doesn't have the talent to weave them together effectively enough. The first two movies felt like second tier films that managed to be more enjoyable than you'd expect. This film feels like a second tier action movie. There's nothing terrible about this movie, it's just things we've all seen before. The film does require a much greater suspension of disbelief than the first two films.

Gerard Butler is always good in these roles. It feels like the bulk of his career has been spent making lesser action movies. He always seems to give a lot to the role- it feels like he knows this is the ceiling for his career, but I applaud him for not giving up. He's good in an otherwise lackluster movie. I have to say that it felt like Morgan Freeman was phoning this one in. Aaron Eckhart probably was smarter, jumping ship in time. That pushed Freeman into that role. The script doesn't do him many favors, he spends (MINOR SPOILER) most of the film in a coma. I'm not sure why Freeman did this film. The money had to help and it does provide a sense of continuity, but it's a shame when the best actor in cast doesn't have much to do.

On the flip side, Nick Nolte continues to show up, do these supporting roles, and just knock them out of the park. It's amazing how good Nolte can be in roles like this. On the downside, I feel like he's played these kinds of roles a lot lately. You do have to give him credit for finding a late-career niche. He made the movie better with his strong supporting performance. I like Danny Huston, but his character was obvious and he's played this role far too many times. Tim Blake Nelson is such an underrated actor, but the script hampered him, too. Jada Pinkett Smith's presence was welcome, but it was an odd utilization of her. I'm not sure that her character's story was handled appropriately. It might have been done for some misdirection, but the execution was lacking. I always enjoy Lance Reddick. I liked Piper Perabo here. She gets to do slightly more than the usual "wife" role, but that's still mostly all she does. A bit of a bummer, but a good illustration of how uninspired this entire movie is.

The action scenes are decent. The opening felt too obvious, but was fun. The drone attack definitely felt too much like science fiction for me. The Butler-Nolte scenes were a ton of fun and perhaps the best of the film, although they did give off a Skyfall/a dozen other movies vibe. Cool, but been done before. The hospital scene was okay- it's not the most memorable, although it did feature some enjoyable moments.

This might be surprising, but Angel Has Fallen made slightly more money than London did, although both are still behind Olympus. I wouldn't be opposed to a fourth Mike Banning movie. Based on this one, I'd be worried the downward trend would continue. This franchise might be past its expiration date, but even if the quality stayed similar to this one, you could do worse. If this is the end, it's been a mostly solid trilogy. It's always a bummer when you go out with the weakest film, but this movie had a few strong moments as well.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend:
Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, Snitch