Armageddon and Deep Impact. Volcano and Dante’s Peak. Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman. These are just a few examples of times when two very similar Hollywood movies have come along roughly at the same time, one usually stealing the thunder of the other by managing to get into cinemas first.
Such is the case with White House Down, which was preceded by a frankly far better attack on the eponymous building blockbuster in the form of Olympus Has Fallen. While that wasn’t necessarily the greatest film in the world, it at least had some edginess to it in its portrayal of violence and the “what if this really happened?” scenario. White House Down feels altogether watered down in comparison and doesn’t really succeed as a throwaway piece of over-the-top cinema in its own right, either.
While on a tour of the White House with his daughter, US Capitol Police officer and would-be Secret Service agent John Cale (Channing Tatum) finds himself in the middle of an attack on the building. Managing to escape being just another hostage, John sets out to rescue the President (Jamie Foxx) and defend him from the group of highly-trained mercenaries.
White House Down isn’t what you would call subtle, which is no surprise considering it’s directed by one of the kings of cinematic destruction, Roland Emmerich, the man behind such films as Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. Its commitment to sheer bombast is something to be applauded and if you’re willing to go along with it, there’s some fun to be had for the first little while. Unfortunately that soon gets tiresome and it becomes clear that the film has nothing else up its sleeve except more and more meaningless deaths interspersed with CGI-laden carnage and cheesy patriotism.
But unlike Olympus Has Fallen, where people getting shot or stabbed actually felt half way visceral, the violence here is blasé and without a lick of impact, quickly becoming white noise for a plot that half-heartedly attempts to make itself politically relevant but never comes close to making the danger feel real. It’s very much on the same path that the Die Hard series has unfortunately found itself: a series of bombastic but disappointingly bloodless action set-pieces that sucks out the impact it might have otherwise had.
It features a cast largely wasted on thankless, nothing roles including the usual charismatic Tatum who is given a clichéd and rather dull central character, Maggie Gyllennhaal trying her best with her fair share of shonky governmental dialogue that lands on the ears like clattering pans and Jamie Foxx as the President himself, who seems more interested in his designer sneakers than he does protecting the nuclear launch codes. In the same way as Air Force One, there’s admittedly something fun about the film’s particular portrayal of the President actually being able to handle himself under attack but the novelty only goes so far. And the supposedly quick-witted, one-liner heavy interplay between him and Tatum just feels forced and stilted, which is an issue when much of the movie focuses on them running around the building trying to figure out how to save the day.
Most of the actors seem to be playing characters that are outdated by about 20 years. That would be okay if the film was any sort of effective throwback to action cinema of the past but instead it approaches something akin to bad parody with more CGI than wit. The film isn’t without its sense of fun if you’re willing to go along with the utter ludicrousness of it but at a certain point it stops being dumb fun and just becomes dumb, trudging on with more meaningless action until it finally gives up the game. It just goes to show that throwing a huge budget at an action movie doesn’t automatically make it entertaining.
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