White House Down

2 ½ pipes out of 4

Olympus Has Fallen, take 2. More takes generally create better results and that is definitely the case here for White House Down outperforming Olympus Has Fallen. Roland Emmerich takes the idea of having the White House hostilely taken over and makes it feasible. Unlike Olympus, who uses brute force to take the White House, Emmerich uses espionage and betrayal what takes down the defenses of our nation’s most defended building. From the trailer it appeared as though Jamie Foxx and Channing Tatum would be cracking jokes at inappropriate times during a massive crisis but it turns out that the jokes made sense during the time and defused the tension building, allowing the audience to stay invested without tensing all the way through the film. This only works because the high tempo action and comedy are maintained all the way through the film with no lulls until the films crescendo. At first glance White House Down is just another over the top action comedy when in reality it pays homage to the classic films in the genre. Emmerich pays direct tribute to such film as The Rock and the lethal weapons series while containing almost every cliché possible from the brilliant hacker to the betrayed soldier. The cliché’s work well together but there are a few loose ends that where hastily tied up with no real thought keeping White House Down off the top shelf but it is pretty darn close.