LONDON HAS FALLEN (2016)

Babak Najafi's film with a screenplay by Creighton Rothenberger, Katrin Benedikt, Chad St. John & Christian Gudegast is the kind of brainless affair that unfortunately I as a film reviewer have to sit through every once in awhile. A sequel of sorts to OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, a film which detailed the taking and destruction of the White House by terrorists, is essentially the same story except this time it's the city of London that has been taken hostage. Simplistc in plot with mindnumbing special effects and considering that there are four credited writers who worked on the screenplay, makes one wonder that something more original could not have been come up with. A fine cast of actors that include Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Melissa Leo must have had a great deal of cash thrown in front of them to have accepted this piece of drivel, either that or there was nothing being offered to them better than this. Pictures like this don't really serve society, they just bring it down, only increasing violent and narrow minded viewpoints from the political right. There seems to have been an attempt to explain why these terrorists are taking the actions that they have, but it dissipates quickly into sophmoric rhetoric on behalf of the good guys. After all terrorists on one side are considered freedom fighters on the other. Gerard Butler is a fine actor and I can only hope that film producers start coming up with something more intelligent for him to do than what he's been starring in lately.