{"id":1734,"date":"2016-03-04T17:46:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T17:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/dev\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2018-09-13T17:56:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T17:56:47","slug":"london-has-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/london-has-fallen\/","title":{"rendered":"London Has Fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here is a film with a great cast in a franchise that many think is unnecessary to continue. And there may be another one coming! This may be Gerard Butler\u2019s best action film yet. He\u2019s bulked up and superhero-ready in this film where, once again, as Mike Banning, he\u2019s protecting the President, played by Aaron Eckhardt. Angela Bassett is the Director of the Secret Service and Morgan Freeman is the Vice President who even Eckhardt jokingly said he modeled his role after and says\u00a0Freeman<\/span>\u00a0should have played the President. Butler says when Freeman walks on the set, everything changes. Even the crew gets excited.<\/span><\/p>\n

The special effects blowing up everything from the Tower of London, bridges along the Thames, Westminster Cathedral and every other landmark will make you cringe at the possibility of it really happening. And the shoot \u2018em up chases will get your heart pumping,\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s really Saturday matinee material, almost like a long, action-packed video game.<\/p>\n

When the British Prime Minister\u00a0\u00a0suddenly dies under mysterious circumstances, world leaders gather for the funeral which turns out to be a set up. The mission is destroy London, kill as many world leaders as possible and kidnap and kill the President of the United States. Game on. When the President goes missing, Freeman as Vice President Allan Trumbull takes over.<\/p>\n

This time Butler and the President spend a lot of time together running around London.\u00a0\u00a0The car chases have guns blazing and Butler hanging out of a car door shooting it up like the wild west. He’s taking on the bad guys from a car instead of a horse! And then there\u2019s the air battle between missiles and the President\u2019s helicopter with a spectacular crash that they walk away from. Really?<\/p>\n

The choreography of the gun battle scenes underground in tube tunnels and under buildings as Butler hunts down the terrorists trying to find the President is highly complicated. Butler says shooting the long sequences was hard, and they\u2019d have to stop and start again when little things went wrong. A gun wouldn\u2019t go off, or someone wouldn\u2019t hit the mark. But he didn\u2019t mind. He thought it was great fun.<\/p>\n

Butler is passionate talking about how much fun he had shooting this film in exciting cities like London and Sofia, Bulgaria. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than sitting in a cinema being excited, being scared with your adrenalin going.\u201d If you suspend disbelief, it will get your heart pumping.\u201d It did. Hard to watch the threats from enemies of the United States using every kind of destruction and even beheadings. It also deals with operatives on the inside trying to take the U.S. down. We knew who the mole was right away.<\/p>\n

This is Swedish Director Babak Najafi\u2019s first American feature film. He\u2019s done a credible job working with a number of writers including Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt who created the characters. There is an attempt at human emotion with Banning trying to leave his job because his wife is pregnant and about to deliver their first child. But when the President calls, Banning is there. Of course.<\/p>\n

Is this worth your bucks? It\u2019s not the greatest film you\u2019ll see this year, but there\u2019s plenty to look at, especially if you like to look at Gerard Butler. He\u2019s a hunk in this one and painted as a superhero. Can\u2019t believe he hasn\u2019t been tapped for something bigger. But there\u2019s not much more you have to do if you can save the President. One major flaw in the film and it\u2019s kind of a spoiler. If the President IS saved, wouldn\u2019t you want to see him at the end of the film? Maybe that\u2019s the draw. You\u2019ll have to see what he looks like after surviving some rough stuff POTUS went through when you see the beginning of the next film, If there is one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Focus Features \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0139 minutes \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0R\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Reviewed March 4, 2016<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a film with a great cast in a franchise that many think is unnecessary to continue. And there may be another one coming! This may be Gerard Butler\u2019s best action film yet. He\u2019s bulked up and superhero-ready in this film where, once again, as Mike Banning, he\u2019s protecting the President, played by Aaron […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1735,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1734\/revisions\/1735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}