Film: White House Down

Director: Roland Emmerich
Genre: Action 
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinemas
Grade: D

Well, I guess for me the winner of the competing White House attack movies is Olympus Has Fallen. 

Because this is a bad movie. Like, embarrassingly bad at times. (Flag twirling . . . just . . . no). Emmerich may be the most destruction happy director of our era (and that's saying a lot, seeing as how Man of Steel just demolished a city for fun). He's a little smug here, name checking his own previous White House destruction in Independence Day, and seemingly trying to tick off every box on the "summer action movie" checklist:

• precocious kid
• hero who has to rise to the occasion and prove himself
• good guy aim - hits every shot as needed
• bad guy aim (after the initial attack) - miss every attack
• overly complicated plot with surprise twists that are telegraphed way too far in advance
• one-liners that mostly fall flat
• absolutely absurd levels of action, like to the point of exhaustion
• "serious" wounds that don't slow down the hero

I could go on, but why? By the way, Jamie Foxx is a completely unconvincing president, and Channing Tatum is a completely unconvincing father, but I would watch another movie where they co-starred because they do have a pretty good rapport. Too bad it goes to waste in this overly long bit of silliness.

The other thing I noticed watching this film (which I also noted when rewatching part of The Avengers yesterday) is that big action movies save money by casting all kinds of television stars rather than actual stars. Sometimes it works (everybody loves Agent Coulsen, right?) and sometimes it's just goofy: "Oh hey, there's the guy who was in Chicago Code!  Taub from House! Agent Broyles from Fringe! My favorite? One of the McPoyle brothers from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, who seems to be the one guy who KNOWS what a bad movie he's in and just decides to ham it up.

Seriously, though. I'm starting to wonder if, in addition to saving me a little money, this new MoviePass will just make me go see a lot more bad movies. 

Alternate Film Title: "James Woods Is SERIOUSLY Starting to Look Just Like George C. Scott"