If you've already seen OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (the other big budget, well-casted DIE HARD at the White House movie released this year) then you have no immediate need to watch this. I just saved you 8 bucks this weekend.
I expected some inevitable similarities, but how much of this became an exact replay is pretty ridiculous. Here too we have an outsider with tenuous Secret Service connections who's luckily at the White House when bad guys (with help of a traitorous Secret Service agent) take over. He's also estranged from his wife. He's got a personal connection with the head of the Secret Service. We have the villains break into the emergency bunker. We have them hack into NORAD and threaten the President's life to try to access the nuclear arsenal. We have a Speaker of the House character forced to become Acting President and reluctantly launches an airstrike against the White House. We have a kid character in peril. We have the 1814 burning of the White House brought up for plot points. We have (in DIE HARD clone tradition) the obligatory "shocking" plot twists. We have scenes where the same government officer gets shot in the 3rd act. We have a similar happy epilogue.
Hell we almost have the exact same sequence with the hero trying to stop the bad guys from firing their anti-aircraft missiles at the Navy Seals helicopters and then brawl with one of the terrorists on the rooftop. I can't wait for somebody on YouTube to do a scene-by-scene comparison.
And just like OLYMPUS, this is perfectly watchable but disposable. Some laughs, some thrills, wait for Redbox. So what's different about the WHITE HOUSE DOWN version? Well most notably, the movie is really a buddy actioneer with rejected Secret Service applicant Magic Mike and President Django. In retrospect I do think they missed an opportunity by playing up more the laughs with such a gimmick which would've really differentiated itself from DOWN, hell maybe make for a better picture? Most buddy films the humor does come from the clash of heavy personality contrasts during a crisis. Remember UNDER SIEGE (king of the DIE HARD clones) where Navy Seal Steven Seagal has to team up with the stripper? Or even IRON MAN 3 from earlier this summer? I mean you have Jamie Foxx playing the Obama surrogate trying to establish peace in the Middle East and Channing Tatum the ex-Marine that the movie implied to be a Republican. You could've had great fun with that. Still them driving around in a Presidential limo shooting rockets at their pursuers was amusing.
Anyway I was skeptical at the idea of Tatum being an action hero, but he's fine in the Keanu Reeves SPEED mold (i.e. have better actors with actual personalities surround him.) In fact considering his female fanbase, I'm surprised the movie didn't have him be shirtless as much as I would've assumed. Remember when many 80s actioneers did that? I did find it amusingly obnoxious this movie tried to make you feel bad for the guy when the Secret Service rejects him as if he's the victim, but considering his record and whineyness, I think they made the right call at the time. I'm surprised we didn't a scene at the end where he's a smug dick and make a sarcastic quip about "refiling my application" or "getting another interview" or something lame like that.
OLYMPUS has one thing over this film, its villains had a clear-cut goal and motivation (even if nobody takes North Korea seriously.) In DOWN, it's very muddled. Something about the military-industrial complex and wanting to stopping Iran's nuclear program...honestly I'm not really sure what these guys were hoping to accomplish. I think the problem was that originally the bad guys were ultra-right wing Americans and/or fundamentalist Christian terrorists, but then the studio got afraid of offending red state audiences. Which is silly. At the movies we've had evil Germans, Russians, Arabs, Brits, etc. Sure Glenn Beck will whine but outside of him, most folks won't give a shit because it's a movie. Also how the leader gets outwitted, he should be ashamed of himself for being so sloppy. He deserved to lose.
So what else did I like? I liked that random scene when terrorist Jason Clarke shoots several guards, then shoots a George Washington portrait, right in the head. Then latter while fighting Tatum he screams with heavy cheese "I'll carve my name on your chest!!!" I kinda related to Tatum's kid who's all enamored with American history (especially the White House) and being unintentionally annoying by enthusiastically sharing factoids. (That was me as a kid.) I did dig her taping the terrorists with her smartphone and uploading that to her YouTube channel. About time the DIE HARD formula caught up to modern technology. I liked the tech geek terrorist bailing out on his teammates and trying to sneak off. I even laughed at that scene with the White House tour guide hostage politely asking the terrorists to not destroy the priceless antiques. (You can probably guess the inevitable pay off.)
I also laughed at the INDEPENDENCE DAY reference. Not funny in itself, but only on a meta-level if you're aware that this and that picture shared the same director.
