Cast: Gast: Ethan Eckhart, Gerald Butler, Charlotte Riley, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett
Director: Babak Najafi
Genre: Action
Duration: 99 minutes
Now showing: Cinema Magic Metroplex Mall Naalya and Century Cinemax Acacia Mall Kisementi
Olympus Has Fallen caused such a frenzy in 2013 that it makes sense that London Has Fallen exists. It also looks like the guys in charge of distribution are making sure the new movie will be just as or even more popular. The teasers and trailers are made of the stuff that make you run to the cinema. Take that teaser from last July for example. It’s just different scenes from the movie put together with almost muted newscast voiceovers to give us an idea of what is going on. To top it off, all this is going on while the nursery rhyme, London Bridge is Falling Down plays ominously coupled with the sound effects from the really dramatic scenes. I remember being peeved that what promised to be an exciting movie was coming out in 2016.
Now that 2016 is here, the suspense is no more. The movie may be set in London but the person of interest is still Benjamin Asher (Eckhart), the American president. Asher is in London along with other super power presidents for the funeral of the recently deceased British Prime Minister. Security is, therefore, so tight that it is making the president’s bodyguard Mike Banning (Butler) a little nervous. It turns out that his nervousness is well-founded when a less than subtle threat is made to Asher, and all the other leaders’ lives. Cue an attack on major London landmarks. The guy behind the attack is Aamir Barkawi (Aboutboul), number six on FBI’s most wanted list and he is not playing games. The rest, you will have to see for yourself. The short of it though is that it’s up to Banning, Asher and an MI6 agent to get to the bottom of things.
Although the movie could have easily been predictable seeing as the element of surprise from the first one cannot be repeated, it is not. The surprise being the very rare bombing of the White House in movies. It has us hanging on to the plot. This may be because of a combination of the cast, sound and visual effects, and a new director. It’s therefore one of those movies that has you so pumped up while you are watching that it is difficult to find fault with it – yet we know nothing is perfect. Also, expect another movie to follow since a location has already been identified.