'Angel Has Fallen' Is a Very Predictable, Cliché Action Thriller That Still Offers Some Fun Sequences

You remember how Olympus Has Fallen pretty much just asked, "What if Die Hard happened in the White House?" This movie pretty much asks, "What if The Fugitive happened... again?"

Here We Go!

Angel Has Fallen is an action thriller written by Robert Mark Kamen, Matt Cook, and Ric Roman Waugh, and directed by Waugh. This movie is the third (and possibly final) installment in the Fallen series, beginning with Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen.

This movie stars Gerard Butler as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who is framed for the attempted murder of the president of the United States. Once he escapes captivity, he must go on the run to clear his name.

As I said earlier, this movie has basically the same premise as the 1993 Harrison Ford thriller called The Fugitive, and the last time I saw a Fugitive rip-off, it was a little movie called Taken 3, so that didn't work out for me.

But this movie is better than Taken 3. That's not saying much, but this is a pretty watchable action thriller. I might like it around as much as Olympus Has Fallen, and this movie was exactly what I was expecting it to be.

This movie has some fun action sequences throughout. They're not all memorable, but they're enjoyable as you watch it. I thought they were exciting and directed pretty well, despite not having too much style to them.

One of my favorite aspects of this movie is that it finally develops Banning's character. The first two have him as a pretty one-dimensional protagonist, but this one finally makes him a little bit more interesting by giving us more of his backstory and his relationship with his father.

I also thought the addition of Nick Nolte was great. He's not in the movie for too much, but the scenes he's in have a good amount of drama and levity, and I liked his character.

This movie also did a good job of changing up the series by having Allan Trumbull as president instead of Benjamin Asher (portrayed by Aaron Eckhart). Without the change, this movie may have felt a bit too stale.

But I'd say that my biggest problem with this movie is that it's too formulaic and clichéd. This movie was actually co-written by the guy who co-wrote Taken 3, and did an uncredited rewrite of The Fugitive, so it seems like Kamen has gotten good at telling the exact same story in many different ways.

I saw every single twist that this movie had up its sleeve coming. Now, I don't normally predict what happens in movies, because I don't like doing that anymore, but I personally found a lot of the reveals to be less than shocking, because I saw them from a mile away.

And I think because of its predictability and familiar plot, this is just a pretty bland action movie that won't stick in the minds of anyone for too long. Because this is a pretty disposable action movie with a story that we've seen get done a lot better.

This movie's screenplay also lacks any sort of charm or anything intelligent. It is essentially an episode of Tom & Jerry where Jerry just runs away for over an hour instead of actually making any clever traps to stop Tom. I wanted some smarter ideas from this movie instead of plain and simple action scenes.

I also didn't feel like the villain had a memorable motivation at all. And I say that because as I'm typing this review, I've completely forgotten why the villain framed Banning, and why he became evil in the first place. He isn't given any sort of development that can distinguish him from any other action movie villain.

Despite this movie's shortcomings, it's entertaining enough. It's the last big action blockbuster of the summer, and even though I prefer Hobbs & Shaw to this, I'd say Angel Has Fallen is a serviceable thriller with some good action sequences; just don't expect to be blown away by the twists.

I'm gonna give 'Angel Has Fallen' a 7/10 (C+).

"The hero becomes The Fugitive?" Yes, that is the most honest tagline I've seen for a movie.

Oh, and can we acknowledge that even though this movie isn't as racist as the first two, they still had one Asian bad guy, and his job was literally to do the intelligent techno-babble computer shit? REALLY, Hollywood?!

Thank you so much for reading.