SummaryWhen there is an assassination attempt on U.S. President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), his trusted confidant, Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is wrongfully accused and taken into custody. After escaping from capture, he becomes a man on the run and must evade his own agency and outsmart the FBI in order to find the ...
SummaryWhen there is an assassination attempt on U.S. President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), his trusted confidant, Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), is wrongfully accused and taken into custody. After escaping from capture, he becomes a man on the run and must evade his own agency and outsmart the FBI in order to find the ...
In fact, none of the performances here are phoned in. Freeman shows great aptitude for the presidency and should consider running — then he could play the president onscreen and off. And as the vice president, Tim Blake Nelson finally gets a role worthy of his depth.
At the heart of the “Has Fallen” franchise is the affection between men, and Butler has always shared the best chemistry with his male co-stars. That spark in “Angel” comes from Butler’s scenes with Nick Nolte, as his father, Clay, a veteran living off the grid.
Nice to see that a film in this series has been treated fairly by the public for once. It's a shame the same can't be said for the critics. No supprised there. Great, not as good as the last, but still a joyride. Or rather, a bombride.
When we think of iconic action heroes, the names that come to mind are John McLain, Rambo, or Jack Bauer, but what about Mike Banning? For a third time, Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) has proven himself to be the only thing standing between the U.S. President and assassination, only this time, he's also a target. In the third installment of the fallen series, Mike Banning saves the president from a drone attack, only to wake up in the hospital to find himself under arrest, accused of planning the whole thing. Now Banning must escape and find out who set him up, before they get to him and finish the job they tried to pin on him. Unlike most trilogies, every single one of these films is terrific, and despite different writers and directors, it has never lost it's edge. In choosing a favorite however, I picked this one, because it was so much different than the rest. Not only is Banning on the other side and in the position of trying to save himself as well as the President, but they bring his family into the story. We finally meet his estranged father, played masterfully by Nick Nolte. A paranoid former veteran living in the woods, the elder Banning is an absolute riot and brings much needed levity to a series that already given us so much. People will look at this and say it's just another action movie, just another attempt by Hollywood to continue to cash in on a successful movie, and normally I'd agree, but not this time. Angel Has Fallen not only features the new face of action films, but it also offers edge of your seat action, a compelling and dramatic story, as well as a little bit of humor, all things that you're normally hard pressed to find in just another action film. That's why we're labeling this one a must see movie!
Angel Has Fallen plays out exactly as you would expect from a potboiler of this type. No surprises here, other than that it exists at all. It’s the kind of movie one expects to be released at the shank end of summer. Time to turn the page to fall.
Given the awfulness of its predecessor, which was this publication’s pick for the worst film of 2016, a sequel that’s merely pedestrian represents a dramatic improvement.
Angel Has Fallen is a galumphing installment to a galumphing action franchise. With a hero who's been beaten to a pulp, the next one could very well be called "Gerard Butler Has Fallen: Natural Causes."
Most action flicks would settle for thrilling violence and mayhem, in service of a utilitarian plot. “Angel” flips this formula on its head, delivering a surprisingly coherent story but with no discernible sense of fun.
Not that this was a bad movie but I would say this the worse one out of the series. It's only about himself being framed with less action again and even less drama just wasn't the best compared to the other 2.
Nick Nolte plays a grumpy old guy who blows up a score of bad dudes in a confrontation on a mountaintop that is a somewhat reminiscent of the first Rambo movie. That is the only fun part of the movie and, alas, very short. It is why I gave it a three, instead of a two.
There is also another guy in this movie, played by Butler. He is an ailing secret service guy past his prime. Despite that he kicks the butts of men half his age, and outwits everyone. Not because he is smart, but because he has plot armor and plot brains and everyone else is shockingly dumb or incompetent. This is how you write a story when you are unable to make a smart guy do smart things. He basically just runs to some place and survives everything with nary a scratch. At one moment he actually runs into a room where a bad guy has the drop on him. But the bad guy waits for Butler to shoot him.
There are so few surprises that it actually surprised me. It takes half a braincell to figure out who the evil guy is behind it all, how the story would develop and how it would end. It was so unsurprising that I actually braced for a twist of some kind, but once the bad guy's voice was being warped when talking to the second main bad guy, I knew it was as bad as I thought it would be. This was just done for the audience.
The biggest surprise for me is that three people wrote the script. It is amazing that you need three writers to write a by the numbers story with characters that have no depth or arch and a story that is as shallow as politician's promise.
A terrible movie.
Loud action sequel to the first 2 'Fallen' films is instantly forgettable but will at least keep you awake. Poor dialogue will have you shaking your head or laughing despite the almost compelling plot hidden by fast, loud, and violent action sequences. And who can resist Manning finding his father Clay, played by Nick Nolte, who is given too little screen time.
Production Company
Millennium Media,
G-BASE,
Campbell Grobman Films,
Cinesite,
Eclectic Pictures,
Visit Portugal,
Picture Portugal,
Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC),
Nu Boyana Film Studios