TORONTO — The new action flick White House Down hits theatres only three months after the similarly-themed Olympus Has Fallen — so is it worth the feeling of deja vu?
Channing Tatum plays a Secret Service applicant who finds himself saving the president, Jamie Foxx, when domestic terrorists take over the White House.
Filmed almost entirely in Montreal, White House Down also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Woods.
Here’s a look at what some of the critics are saying.
“The script is both shamelessly formulaic and over-complicated,” opined David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter. “While the movie wears out its welcome en route to a conclusion that’s equal parts twisty and predictable, the appealing leads’ camaraderie and virtually non-stop bullets-and-explosives action of the second half keep you watching.”
Most other reviewers agree with Rooney, describing White House Down as a mind-numbing thrill ride.
Claudia Puig of USA Today warned audiences that “all disbelief must be checked at the theater door.”
She explained: “None of the actions taken by administration officials during the takeover make a lick of sense. So it’s best to simply sit back and enjoy the camaraderie of Tatum and Foxx as they narrowly avert disaster.”
Postmedia reviewer Chris Knight thought director Roland Emmerich deserves credit for “finding a way to have Tatum fight a bad guy after having (A) lost his shirt in some sort of explosion that left him otherwise unharmed and (B) set off the White House sprinkler system. That’s planning!”
Knight said White House Down lacks logic and military realism but fans of action scenes will “likely be willing to forgive a few of the film’s lapses in lucidity, including an ending and bad-guy revelation straight out of Scooby-Doo.”
According to Mary Pols of Time, “the first rule of White House Down is, Question nothing. Not whether the Secret Service really conducts its interviews at the White House or your first instincts about the identity of the bad guy (because you’d be right). And definitely not the narratively convenient confluence of coincidence and timing.”
Forbes critic Scott Mendelson doesn’t take the movie too seriously either.
“White House Down is a pretty solid action-adventure picture that delivers exactly what it promises and does so with high style,” he wrote. “It’s big-scale, full of fun dialogue and genuinely entertaining character turns by a crop of terrific performers. The film is more concerned with having fun than with being an all-time classic action picture.”
Mendelson called it an entertaining summer movie that is “not insanely smart but (save for some third-act cheese) rarely stupid either.”
Lou Lumenick of the New York Post said White House Down is “the funniest thing I’ve seen this year.”
At Rolling Stone, reviewer Peter Travers was clearly less impressed.
“What’s not to like about escapism?,” he asked. “White House Down helpfully answers that question by giving you tons of stuff not to like. I mean, there’s dumb and then there’s idiotic.”
Travers cited the two leads as disappointments. “Tatum looks every inch the action hero, but he’s got nothing to play. Foxx doesn’t look remotely presidential, and phones in what is laughably being called a performance.”
He’s not done. “I could go on. The movie certainly does, for an interminable 131 minutes. Things explode at regular intervals. A few good actors line up as targets. And computers generate what passes for action filmmaking. White House Down, as crass and cynical as a Michael Bay movie, is a depressing experience. A manufactured hit that plays to the basest instincts of its audience. The poster for this movie should read: Hello, Suckers!”
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