OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

year: 2013 cast: Gerard Bulter, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Robert Forster rating: ***

Beginning with a successful yet ultimately tragic rescue of the President of the United States, resulting in the death of his wife into an icy lake, his number one Secret Service agent and chief decision maker Mike Banning is laying low in Washington, sadly remembering the good old days. Meanwhile President Asher, played by Aaron Eckhart, has an important meeting about North Korea and his young son misses mom, and even more so, Gerard Butler’s Manning, who was sort of a big brother and/or cool uncle through the years.

The word Olympus refers to the White House, and with a blasting of jet planes soaring through the blue skies of Washington D.C., followed by nefarious terrorist ground troops moving in, the White House is penetrated while the Prez himself, along with his Veep and a few others, go down to a secret safe room – which doesn’t remain secret or safe for long.

This initial all-out attack/invasion, the second action sequence following the first lady’s demise, is both exciting and involving, without the use of too many shaky cameras. The important thing, though, is that Banning (Butler) manages to get inside the now dilapidated White House interior. All the while, a villainous Korean “mastermind” named Kang has the President hostage, blowing away most of his important underlings to prove he means business.

All the bombastic acrobatics aside, with violence bordering on a gratuitous level and sporadic cuts to a round table emergency session (which includes Morgan Freeman's Secretary of State), the good stuff has Butler making edgy ground throughout the White House, taking out the bad guys and attempting to rescue the President’s son.

Heck, even a sweaty one-on-one fistfight against the main villain trumps the last minute attempt to avert an all-out nuclear war, proving that a good old fashion muscular hero is worth his weight in action genre gold, or in this case, solid bronze.