Are Arab Terrorists Passe?

Perhaps not in real life, but in Olympus Has Fallen, a recent escapee from Millenium Studios, we have Koreans stepping to the fore.

Is this an aberration, or a new wave?

What follows here is a public service announcement to warn you away from spending $10 on this violent, simplistic prodigal son “story” that appears to have been written by Millie Morrison’s third grade class.

The movie opens on a Christmas Eve at Camp David. Three quick plot devices introduce President Asher, the First Lady and their loveable nine year old semi-nerd of a son. The president finishes sparring in a small boxing ring and returns to the first family’s suite, where we meet the other two members.

The action begins five minutes later as their motorcade heads back to Washington in a driving snowstorm. Suddenly something undefinable happens that puts the limo carrying the president and first lady into a skid. It smashes through a barrier and comes to a halt with its front end teetering over a river far below. After some pointless semi-tension the president escapes just as the limo slides over the edge and into the river, carrying the First Lady with it. We are now freed from any meaningful adult familial interaction.

Young Connor, riding in a another vehicle, also escapes.

The action jumps ahead a few months. In a coffee shop conversation with the head of the Secret Service we learn that the president exiled our hero-to-be, Agent Banning, from the White House because his 175 pound body leaning on the trunk of the 10,000 pound limo just couldn't keep the vehicle from sliding into the river and taking the first lady with it.

On a summer evening shortly thereafter the President welcomes the South Korean Prime Minister to the White House for an economic summit.

Almost immediately it begins to hit the fan. A plane with U.S. Air Force markings flies into restricted airspace near the White House. Two American fighter jets seek to force it away, but both are instantly downed by the intruder. A missile or four are fired at the plane, which, it appears, has a magic shield that bounces the missiles away.

The plane attacks the White House, the Secret Service rushes everyone in both delegations to the president’s underground shelter. No, Dick Cheney was not still there.

Almost immediately the head of Korean security, Kang, comes out of the closet as a North Korean sleeper. He kills the Prime Minister and our Vice President, then handcuffs the President, the Secretary of Defense and a couple of others to a railing.

Kang contacts a bunker elsewhere manned by what passes for American leaders to demand four things - the first lad; the Cerberus codes that incapacitate falsely launched nuclear missiles - seemingly all 7,240,803 of them (Cerberus was a three headed dog of Greek mythology that guarded the gates of Hades); that the Seventh Fleet turn around and leave the Asian mainland unprotected; and a helicopter on the south lawn to whisk him away when his dirty work is done.

Meanwhile, multitudes of heavily armed Korean terrorists appear from nowhere in waves. And our poor Army is incapable of doing anything but hanging around, swearing and shooting off a few ineffectual bullets.

But all is not lost. Banning the prodigal son bursts into action, dispensing death in a way that puts Sylvester Stallone and Steven Seagal to shame. He, his pistol and a never ending supply of ammunition roam through the White House for what seemed like an hour taking out scads of heavily armed bullet proof vest wearing terrorists.

Banning sneaks the boy out of the house as Yang pursues the codes. Irony of ironies, the code has three parts. And, mysteriously the only three people each know one component, a senior Naval Officer, our Secretary of Defense, and the president, are all in the bunker.

In the ensuing orgy of graphic violence Kang kills the officer, assaults and all but rapes the secretary, but holds back with the president.

The plot (and that word must be used loosely) starts to wind down once Kang gets two of the three codes. But the president has become irrelevant as Kang's lovely assistant uses the bunker’s computer to crack his code. Then she starts the timer on the missile deactivation.

The American geniuses in the good guys bunker, led by Speaker of the House Morgan Freeman determine that Kang’s goal is to explode every missile in every silo and turn this country into a nuclear desert. (were I Morgan Freeman I would have taken this role under two conditions - first, that I can wear a full burka during every on camera appearance, and, second, that Mel Brooks speak all my lines)

Again skipping ahead, the countdown to destruction has started, so Kang places himself and the ten others still in the White House bunker in full body sackcloth, chains them to one another and moves them to the helicopter. Of course no sniper can target Kang because the president is also in the parade. They board the helicopter, it takes off, then, boom, explodes. Poor President Asher.

But no. Kang left him behind to preside over the soon to be wasteland. Banning finds him, and after a lot of readily forgettable pseudo-tension building blah, blah, blah, stops the timer and terminates the countdown to nuclear destruction. We old fogies were waiting for it to stop at 007.

By the end of this plot free orgy of violence and special effects the White House is trashed, First Boy is safe, the world has been saved, a new home of villainy exploited, and the prodigal son forgiven.

Is that too much to ask of a mediocre movie that seems to have rushed the summer?