Angel Has Fallen is the sequel to 2016’s London Has Fallen, and the third installment of the Fallen movie series. Gerald Butler once again plays United States
Secret Service agent Mike Banning, arguably his second most iconic movie character (King Leonidas will likely forever be his most iconic). And
this time, he serves in the protection detail of Allan Trumbull (Morgan
Freeman), who is now President of the United States. While President Trumbell is on a fishing
trip, an assassination attempt via state-of-the-art drones is made on him, sending
him to a coma and killing everyone with him, except for Banning, who is set up
to take the fall for the attack. Now, on
the run from both the authorities and the real perpetrators, he must expose a
conspiracy that’s leading the country into disaster as well as save the
president, whose life is still in danger.
Morgan Freeman’s character has a
nice arc going for him in the Fallen
trilogy. He was Speaker of the House in Olympus, Vice-President in London, and now, he’s POTUS in Angel.
He also has a good dynamic with Mike Banning. But still, it’s nothing like the dynamic
between Mike Banning and Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), the POTUS of the first
two Fallen movies.
In my review for London Has Fallen, I mentioned about
wanting a trilogy to happen – which did happen with Angel – but particularly because, and I quote, “I seemed to have
gained the taste for more of Banning and Asher’s absurd adventures together.” For me, Asher was an important secondary
character in this film series. Thus, my
biggest disappointment in Angel Has Fallen
is his absence. I really wish that the
plot had Mike turning to him for help while he’s on the run.
Instead, the plot had Mike asking
help from his estranged father, played by Nick Nolte (not really a spoiler; it
was in the trailer). He’s an
entertaining presence in this movie – almost a consolation for Asher’s absence –
and one of the best moments in this movie involves him and the booby trap
explosives he had put around his home in the woods (which the trailer spoiled).
Angel Has Fallen is dumb and ludicrous as a whole. But I didn’t expect it to be any other way. I knew from the get-go that that’s what this
franchise is all about. In fact, it actually
feels a bit more restrained than its predecessors. That, or I just got used to the levels of
cheese and ridiculousness that a Fallen
movie will go to.
One weird part of the movie,
though, is this fiercely anti-Russia vice-president (played by Tim Blake
Nelson) who even angrily mentions about “Russia tampering with the elections” in
one scene, which, if it’s the case in this universe, doesn’t make sense since
it’s his party who won the previous elections.
It seems like another of Hollywood’s usual forced anti-Trump jabs that pathetically
duds. It’s also possible that the movie’s
whole deal with this vice-president character was to low-key shade the Dems
this time around. Either way, it’s weird. But it’s just another element that can be
covered by this franchise’s license to be ridiculous.
In the end, by recognizing the
turn-your-brain-off, 90’s-style action flick that it was going for, I had fun
with Angel Has Fallen, predictable
and disposable as it may be.
There are apparently more of
these movies to come, and I’m actually somewhat excited to see what absurd adventures
they will send Mike Banning next.
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