This is a very late review of White House Down. Better late than never, right? Early in the film, the tour guide remarked, “this is the building they blew up in Independence Day…” This is to remind the viewers that this film is directed by the same guy who blew up the White House in 1996 when aliens took over Earth. This is the second film of the year with the same premise. The first one was Olympus Has Fallen released last March starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman. Can Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx save this film from turning into a disaster?
In Roland Emmerich’s White House Down, Capitol Policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nation’s government falling into chaos and time running out, it’s up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.
I don’t like Channing Tatum before because he used to give wooden performances then 21 Jump Street was released and he was surprisingly watchable in it. I was initially worried on how bad he will be in this role but I can say that improvements continued over this film. As Cale, he gave an entertaining performance all throughout. Equally funny with his pair of Air Jordans, Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx had fun playing the role of President Sawyer. With more of a buddy-cop film feel in their chemistry, the film’s best comedic moments are when these two leads are together.
As for the supporting roles, we get to have some solid ones and some bad ones. Among the solid group is Maggie Gyllenhaal as Special Agent Carol Finnerty who also happened to be Cale’s ex-flame. There’s a bit of her Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight in her performance. Nicolas Wright who plays the White House’s tour guide is hilarious that you don’t want to mess with his artifacts. Known for her roles in Ramona and Beezus and The Dark Knight Rises, Joey King is a good choice as Cale’s daughter. Emmerich made a good use of her as the victim to get the sympathy the film needed from us for both Tatum and Foxx’s characters to save the day. I think Jason Clarke strike the right tone for his terrorist role. As much as I tried to like James Woods in his villainous role, I didn’t like him that much and find him very predictable. I think my problem with him lies on how badly written his character is. The worst actor in the film is Lance Reddick as General Caulfied. He’s just so flat and his delivery felt as if recitation rather than acting.
Now on to my review of the film: Roland Emmerich is known for his passion for CGI money-shot destruction. He blew up many landmarks in Independence Day, we get to see New York undergo a new ice age in The Day After Tomorrow and the world’s end in 2012. In White House Down, the CGI effects are expectedly decent but not that impressive unfortunately having no memorable shot to stay in your mind. It actually is small-scale in comparison with his previous mentioned works. But it’s still your typical Emmerich actioner with all the over-the-top action from car chases in the lawn and to the aerial combat scenes.
I was surprised on how it turned out because I was expecting a bad film. The story might be ridiculous in all levels from the motive of the villains and up to final twist. There are a lot of plot holes. I’m not going to discuss them to keep this review spoiler-free but I’m sure you’ll be able to spot them easily. In comparison with Olympus Has Fallen, it has a felt a less realistic threat. But obviously the filmmakers are not so keen on making it a grounded film out of it, it’s a film that you don’t need to take seriously because it already knows its silliness and it does know how to ride along with it. They actually succeed with that and made it one popcorn movie to sit through. With two hours of running time, it didn’t feel long. It only showed a few character moments in the beginning and it went for the action right away. It’s very straightforward. Strangely, I enjoyed the film from start to end.
Verdict
With hilarious performances from its cast, it’s one bad movie which is explosive and entertaining enough all throughout.
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About the movie reviewer:
Orange Magazine TV‘s newest film critic is a self-confessed movie geek. John Albert Villanueva love movies so much, he watch every movies from the big screen and collects DVDs of classic movies. Read his other review here.
