Of the two films about attacks on the White House released in 2013, Roland Emmerich’s White House Down proved bigger, dumberer and a whole lot more fun than the stodgily straight-faced Olympus Has Fallen. Sadly, it’s the latter which has spawned this sequel, meaning that Gerard Butler gets to do his bargain-basement Bruce Willis impression again, but this time on the merrie olde streets of London. When world leaders gather for the PM’s state funeral, London is hit by an “attack which has decimated most of the known landmarks of the British capital!!!” Crikey! “Make those fuckers pay,” gurgles a dying Angela Bassett, hardening Gerard’s resolve to send these “terrorist assholes” – most of whom are disguised as British bobbies (“Fuck, they’re not real cops!!”) – back to “Fuckhead-istan” pronto.
The fact that the film-makers don’t actually use the song America, Fuck Yeah! hardly dispels the sense that this is basically Team America: World Police without the jokes, and with more wooden acting. The cheap-as-chips visual effects are pitiful (all sub-Doctor Who CG explosions and video-game helicopter crashes), the action sequences coma-inducingly dull and overall tone laughable, but not in a good way.
