With the 2016 Academy Award season just ended, and many already anticipating next years Oscar’s host as well as nominees, one can be reasonably sure that films–let’s call them ‘movies’ because there’s something a bit pretentious, Spielbergian and Hitchcockian about ‘film’–like London Has Fallen won’t be on the receiving end of the Academy’s largesse.
And in some ways that’s understandable–looking at the trailer the CGI often looks a bit cheap–though there’s something to be said for movies that are designed less as prestige projects than to entertain their audience.
London Has Fallen is the sequel to 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen, which revolved around an invasion of the White House by Korean terrorist (it goes without saying more than likely North Korean). The first movie was helmed by action impresario Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer, the upcoming Magnificent Seven reboot), who didn’t return to direct the sequel.
This time the director’s chair is occupied by Babak Najafi, and London Is Fallen is his first big Hollywood film.
Luckily, unlike in the case of Antoine Fuqua, Nafafi doesn’t have to worry about a competing film from Sony Pictures (Sony released White House Down, starring Tatum Channing and Jamie Foxx June 28th, followed about three months later by Olympus Has Fallen. White House Down was directed by the ‘Master of Disaster.’ Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Stonewall, Independence Day: Resurgence).
