Surely they can’t think the Butler did it?

As the third movie in the franchise, there was a specific burden on “Angel Has Fallen” to whit it’s a franchise tiebreaker. Mike Banning’s strike rate was balanced on a knife-edge: on one side, the solidly entertaining “Olympus Has Fallen”. On the other, the egregious shit show that is “London Has Fallen”. Good news, then, that fortune is on the side of the angels because this third instalment is something of a return to form.

Having served faithfully on the secret service protection squad of two Presidents, when an attack takes out his whole team and puts the President in a coma, Mike Banning is disturbed to discover he is the chief suspect. With time running out as international tensions rise, Banning must evade his own agency and the FBI while trying to track down the real culprits.

It’s something of a well-worn trope to have a hero be framed for a crime he didn’t commit and have to go on the run from his former allies, with “Taken 3” being the most recent example that springs to mind and while “Angel Has Fallen” might not be original, or even in unpredictable in the slightest, it does at least attempt to freshen its approach to the gung-ho action by attempting – at least at the beginning – to humanise Banning just a little bit.

When we reacquaint ourselves with Mike, he’s a mess. Popping painkillers and suffering migraines (although those migraines may very well be due to the headache-inducing and epilepsy-risking direction of Ric Roman Waugh). It’s a fragility and vulnerability which should raise the stakes for the action to come, or at least it would do if Banning’s health problems continued once the relentless action begins in earnest, much like Bruce Wayne’s magic knee brace in “The Dark Knight Rises”. It’s almost as if the subplot about health issues and the toll his previous adventures have taken was added during reshoots, which would also explain his decidedly doughy appearance in the early pre-crisis scenes compared to the rest of the film.

In the end, “Angel Has Fallen” may stumble due to its sluggish pacing, patchy special effects and deeply muddled high-calibre shoot-‘em-up approach to delivering its anti-war message but it never actually falls thanks to the innately gruff, solid likability of Gerard Butler and fun cameos from Nick Nolte and Morgan Freeman. It may overestimate how much esteem Mike Bannon is held in by audiences – he’s no John McClane or even Bryan Mills – but he’s the best this kind of action cinema has these days.

angel has fallen review
Score 6/10
logo

Related posts

A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas (2011) Review

A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas (2011) Review

Headline If stoner comedies are your kind of thing, crammed with inappropriate humour, festive dick jokes and gratuitously over the top antics, then Craggus' Christmas Countdown has got you covered. Picking up six years after "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay", "A Very...

Love And Monsters (2021) Review

Love And Monsters (2021) Review

Love And Monsters takes us to the kind of world you’d get if a well-meaning kid used a Monkey’s Paw to wish for Pokémon to be real. Part monster mash, part post-apocalyptic teen adventure, Dylan O’Brien makes for a likeable hero as he sets out on a family-friendly quest for love through...

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier Episode 6

The Falcon And The Winter Soldier Episode 6

One World, One PeopleReview And so, with ONE WORLD, ONE PEOPLE, THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER reaches its own endgame. And while it’s a suitably action-packed one, it’s also an almost entirely predictable one. There’s satisfaction and entertainment in its denouement, of course...

Loki Episode 2

Loki Episode 2

The Variant Review Perhaps lulled into a false sense of cynicism by the uneven pacing of THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, the second episode of Marvel’s Disney+ series LOKI took me by surprise. Rather than hitting the brakes and treading water to provide more details of the world...

Krampus (2015) Review

Krampus (2015) Review

It's Craggus v Krampus: Dawn Of Christmas From writer/ director of “Trick ‘R Treat” Michael Dougherty, “Krampus” is a fiercely fun, festive comedy horror with its bony, clawed finger pointed firmly at the cold, cold heart of the greed and hypocrisy of the commercialisation of the...

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) Review

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) Review

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3, James Gunn's MCU swansong, is a moving yet indulgent celebration of found families After an extended absence due to both in-universe and some rather more cynical Twitter-verse reasons, James Gunn finally returns to helm the closing chapter of his...

Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time Review

Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time Review

Once, Upon Time sees Chibnall take a sledgehammer to the mirror of time Where WAR OF THE SONTARANS saw Chibnall in more or less traditional DOCTOR WHO story-telling mode, ONCE, UPON TIME sees him throw the storytelling rulebook out the window for a crazy-paving time-fractured...

Doctor Who: Thin Ice Review

Doctor Who: Thin Ice Review

Thin Ice pits race against time travel Bill’s real world nous and sci-fi savvy is proving to be a real asset to the current season of Doctor Who. After last week’s detour into whimsical fairy tale storytelling, “Thin ice” brings us solidly back to a more grounded Who, and adds...