Gerard Butler Double: London Has Fallen

After checking out Gods of Egypt on Saturday, Tuesday night we ventured over to the Cinemark Playa Vista for Happy Hour at Hop Doddy's and Gerard Butler action flick London Has Fallen. Sequel to 2013's surprise 90's style action hit Olympus Has Fallen, London picks up three years later as President Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and top Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler) head across the pond for the Prime Minister's funeral but it's actually a trap set by vengeful terrorists from Pakistan. With access to the city cut off and multiple leaders assassinated, Banning and Asher hit the streets evading well armed baddies who want to execute the President live on the internet. Babak Najafi takes directing reins from premiere action helmer Antoine Fuqua and acquits himself nicely in the fast paced and highly violent flick. Original writers Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt are joined by Christian Gudegast and Chad St. John on the $60 million budgeted affair. Olympus Has Fallen cast members Radha Mitchell, Morgan Freeman, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett and Melissa Leo return with new additions like Colin Salmon and Jackie Earle Haley who stand around in suits in war rooms.

While casual viewers could call Olympus and London Die Hard knock offs with the one, isolated man taking on an army motif, I think they more resemble Under Siege, the Die Hard on a boat film starring Steven Seagal which managed to be a solidly crafted and entertaining thriller in it's own right. With hard R violence, cursing, explosions and blood, London Has Fallen is an unabashed action flick that has little time for class but lots of space for mayhem. Like Olympus, some of the CGI is stodgy thanks to modern Cannon Films studio Nu Image/Millennium making an epic on a budget but there's close quarter combat, gunfights, car chases, one liners and dead bodies aplenty in the 99 minute runtime. There was something strangely patriotic about watching Scottsman Butler play an American tearing through the streets, homes, subways and embassies of London straight deading fools. It was a cinematic reminder that America kicks ass, so let them kick ass. It reminded me of Jesse Ventura's thoughts on having a smaller but better trained and equipped military who could take on threats versus part time Reservists simply to fill numbers. Like an 80's and 90's throwback, London Has Fallen takes a highly skilled individual with the drive to survive and conquer the enemy, cutting through red tape, taking care of the job and not being afraid of doing the Damme thing.

London opened with $21 million last weekend, down from Olympus' $29 million but also received an A- Cinemascore which should equate solid word of mouth. London has the action scene to itself for a few weeks before Batman VS Superman at the end of the month. Star and producer Butler has been promoting the film heavily on social media, TV and making appearances at military bases. We'll see if London has legs and what falls next aka gets blown up and stabbed to death.

Gerard Butler Double: Gods of Egypt

This past weekend we took in a screening of 2016's first big budget bomb, Gods of Egypt. The film already had bad buzz going in as a mainly white cast was displayed in the trailer of a story set in a country that links Africa to the Middle East. Front and center you had Australian, Danish and Scottish faces along with a very divisive preview showcasing outlandish special f/x and computer generated action. You had separate apologies from the studio and director before the film even opened. The reported $140 million would be franchise starting flick opened with a not great $14 million and has generated just $72 million worldwide in two weeks. But I'm a sucker for fantasy set action films, especially of the sand, sandal and sword variety. Clash and Wrath of the Titans were fun adventure tales while 300 was more workout inspiring than solid film and Immortals being straight difficult to watch. Was Gods of Egypt as bad as the hype? Would it unfairly be classified as unwatchable as Legend of Hercules or Conan the Barbarian reboot? It's a strange film but has some very interesting things going on. Director Alex Proyas has shown talent behind the camera with The Crow, Dark City, I, Robot and Knowing but GoE is hamstrung by it's ambition and lack of resources to execute.

Written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, Egypt starts by explaining to the audience how the Gods lived on Earth because they had great powers and liked being worshiped. They're also taller than mortals which set off an alarm immediately. Then we meet young thief Bek (Brenton Thwaites) trying to make a better life for his love Zaya (Mad Max: Fury Road's Courtney Eaton) on their way to a ceremony for Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who's about to become king. But big bad uncle Set (Gerard Butler) shows up, kills the king, puts a whupping on Horus and assumes the throne. From there it's a journey of sacrifice and redemption as Bek enlists the sulking Horus on a mission to get them both back something they've lost. The ambition and scope of the film is immense but not quite carried out to a T, you have some really bad CGI going on, from animated creatures fighting to horrendous green screen walking. The taller gods to humans ratio is also strange to watch. But there's plenty of fighting and the design is quite impressive. From the armor to kingdoms to humanoid animal troops and mythical creatures to a floating barge up in space, Gods of Egypt contains moments of excellence along with a sense of humor, lots of muscular bodies and plenty of cleavage. Below the main white faces you do get a solid supporting cast of non-WASP looking faces like Eaton, Elodie Yung, Rufus Sewell and Chadwick Boseman. Although the lady and I laughed that everyone more or less sounded English but Gerard Butler kept his thick Scottish brogue.

I'm not sure if the film would have done that much better without the white washing controversy as the trailers seemed to put many casual viewers off with it's over the top shine and video game like quality. It goes on a bit too long at over 2 hours but you definitely get your money's worth of visuals and action on the big screen. Game of Thrones' Coster-Waldau is the latest star of the hit show to not crossover to film, following Jason Mamoa's unsuccessful turn as Conan, Kit Harrington lead flop Pompeii, Emilia Clarke as a lackluster Sarah Conner in the under performing Terminator: Genisys, Gwendoline Christie not doing much in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, on and on. 3 episode guest star Ed Skrein did take over from Jason Statham for The Transporter reboot and is currently the villain in high grossing hit Deadpool so you never know who's going to go where from TV. Star Butler did little promotion for the film, electing to focus on starring/producing effort London Has Fallen which opened just one week later.

Master Cast: Reign of Fire

Parts of Hollywood will be shut down starting today in preparation of the annual Academy Awards happening on Sunday, March 2nd.  Ellen Degeneres returns as host for the second time in a year dominated by nominees based on true life events like Captain Phillips, 12 Years A Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street, Dallas Buyers Club and American Hustle.  Nominees for Best Actor include Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey.  This is Bale's second Oscar nomination and McConaughey's first.  Bale had previously won for his wiry, crazy and shady portrayal of boxing trainer Dicky Eklund in The Fighter.  This year sees him being praised for his performance as a fat, hair piece wearing petty criminal in American Hustle.  Matthew's McConaughssaince has been building for several years as 2011's The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe and 2012's Magic Mike showed his serious and charming sides.  His performance as HIV stricken cowboy Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club sees him shedding his Hollywood muscle and dropping some 40 pounds in a truly great destructive and desperate showcase.

Rewind 12 years and these two Best Actor nominees co-starred in the summer of 2002's awesome, post-apocalyptic, dragon fighting sci-fi/action romp, Reign of Fire.  Bale, fresh from his hilarious and villainous roles in American Psycho and Shaft plays Quinn Abercromby, leader of a struggling colony of survivors in the ash covered ruins outside of London.  Everyday is a struggle to feed and inspire the downtrodden community as many have lost hope and want to take their chances out in the wasteland.  One day, a small army arrives at their gates, led by McConaughey's bald, bearded and wild eyed Denton Van Zan, a dragon slayer who has rebuilt a military unit and come from America looking for the papa creature he believes to be the key in defeating the winged menace.  By now McConaughey had already made a splash with performances in Dazed and Confused, A Time To Kill and Amistad.  Genre fare hit and misses like U-571, Frailty and The Wedding Planner showed a varied if uneven career path in progress.

Director Rob Bowman wanted two strong actors in the leads who would be believable and able to carry the picture beyond it's computer enhanced spectacle.  Bale sports a mangy beard while McCon's shaved head and tattoos made him nearly unrecognizable.  Of course the two leaders butt heads as Quinn believes hunting dragons is suicide and that they're better off waiting them out.  Van Zan is eager to take back the sky and planet as he views Quinn's plan as nothing but a slow death.  While survival is the goal for both men, their opposing leadership styles eventually bring them to disagreement and blows, literally.  McConaughey admits to being overzealous in their one sided fight scene and headbutted Bale for real.  Bale, a consummate professional, took the blow and finished the scene but was plenty pissed afterwards.   Bale even punked McConaughey and asked if he was OK.  McConaughey responded, "Yeah, you mad bastard - I headbutted you!"  By the end of the film, both characters meet in the middle as they realize each of their methodology is flawed.  Teaming up, they defeat the fire breathing father and humanity's future looks to be back on track.

As if having two future Oscar nominated leading men weren't enough, Bowman's keen eye for casting also gives us Gerard Butler in a supporting role as Quinn's second in command, Creedy.  4 years later, Butler would star in massive hit 300 which would inspire a spate of imitator sword and sandal action movies while giving rise to a new style of Spartan-veined workouts.  Also along for the ride is 90's hot actress Izabella Scorupco, a former model and singer who popped up in Goldeneye and 2000's cheese/intense-tastic mountain climbing action flick, Vertical Limit ("Strap on the nitro.").  Here's hoping that Bale and McConaughey use their current pull in Hollywood to reunite in another flick as entertaining as Reign of Fire.