Review: 'White House Down' is 'satisfyingly stupid'
CNN-1 hour ago
In his latest big-budget excuse to blow up 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "White House Down," Emmerich doesn't waste time with anything as ...
Review: 'White House Down' is 'satisfyingly stupid'
updated 1:55 PM EDT, Fri June 28, 2013
Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx star in Roland Emmerich's action movie, "White House Down."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- "White House Down" stars Jamie Foxx as POTUS and Channing Tatum as a police officer
- When mercenaries take over the White House, Tatum dives in to protect the president
- Roland Emmerich's "White House Down" blows up sets and plausibility
- But when you're having this much fun, why quibble?
I don't mean that as a
backhanded compliment. Seriously. It takes a certain kind of genius to
crank out blockbusters as spectacularly silly as "Independence Day,"
"The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012." And the main difference between
Emmerich and fellow maestros of mayhem like Michael Bay is that he
actually seems to be in on the joke. He knows his movies are
preposterous nonsense, and he embraces it.
In his latest big-budget
excuse to blow up 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, "White House Down," Emmerich
doesn't waste time with anything as conventional as a setup; he just
dives right in, introducing us to Channing Tatum's John Cale, a divorced
Capitol police officer itching to be a Secret Service agent to impress
his daughter (Joey King).
While his job interview
in the West Wing is going south, right-wing mercenaries take over the
White House demanding $400 million. Meanwhile, Cale's daughter has been
taken hostage and the president (Jamie Foxx) is left unguarded. Guess
who steps in to protect the POTUS?
Emmerich and screenwriter
James Vanderbilt ("The Amazing Spider-Man") rip off "Die Hard" beat for
beat. But when you're having this much fun, why quibble? The entire
film is merely an excuse for Tatum to squeeze off machine-gun rounds in a
muscle-baring tank top, Foxx to do his cool-cat Obama impression right
down to chomping on Nicorette, and Emmerich to revel in what he does
best — blast the sets (and plausibility) to kingdom come.
Comparisons between this
and last March's similarly themed "Olympus Has Fallen" are going to be
inevitable, so let me just say that Emmerich's is the D.C. disaster
flick to see. Skip it, and you'll be depriving yourself of one of the
summer's most satisfyingly stupid pleasures.
Grade: B-
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