Daily News Channel
Olympus has Fallen (R16) 120 mins ——————– I generally do not watch trailers before seeing a movie, so if you are the same, let me tell you first off that, despite its title and the presence of a burly Gerard Butler, this is no sandals and swords epic. One thing you can reasonably intuit about the film, however, is that with director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter) at the helm, it should not be too shabby.
A man knew where he stood in the 80s and early 90s. With Willis, Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the top tier, Van Damme and Seagal fighting it out for the scraps, and a legion of disposable pretenders going straight to video behind them, a bloke could queue up with confidence at the multiplex, safe in the knowledge that a chisel-featured white guy would be taking on an ethnically diverse pack of villains, and saving the world in time to get a couple of pints in on the way home before the pubs all closed at 11pm.
It happens every year: Memorial Day kicks off the summer with a box office bang, and Labor Day ends it with a whimper. While overall numbers were up compared to this frame in 2008, audiences didn’t show much enthusiasm for anything at the multiplex this weekend