Movie review: ‘London Has Fallen’ all too familiar

What, again?

Again with the president (Aaron Eckhart) in dire peril from wicked-smart (and wicked-wicked) terrorists with only a single Secret Service agent (Gerard Butler) left standing to save the presidential bacon?

Again with a body count rivaling that of the Battle of Shiloh as those multitudinous terrorists obligingly present themselves like targets in a shooting gallery to be gunned down by the rapid-firing, never-missing hero?

Again with Morgan Freeman looking grave and leaderly in the Situation Room as the nation’s second-in-command reacting with disbelief but also poise to the stunning events playing out on giant video monitors?

Yep, you bet.

It’s all happening all over again in “London Has Fallen,” the ridiculously improbable and breathtakingly shameless sequel to the 2013 action hit “Olympus Has Fallen.”

Shameless because — come on — if ever there was a picture that did not lend itself to sequelization it was “Olympus.” It was barely possible to buy its feverish Hollywood fantasy about a terrorist smackdown of the super-duper highest-tech protective cocoon surrounding the leader of the free world. When its near-clone came out mere months later in the form of “White House Down,” the bloom was already well off that particular rose of a plot.

However, “Olympus” was a big fat hit, so a sequel was ordered up. Improbability be damned.

How to top “Olympus”? Well, director Babak Najafi (succeeding Antoine Fuqua who directed “Olympus’”) and a platoon of credited screenwriters came up with the concept of putting not only the president in peril, but slaughtering a whole bunch of world leaders gathered in London for the funeral of the British prime minister. Goodbye Canadian PM. Auf wiedersehen, German lady chancellor. Saynonara, Japanese prime minister, dumped unceremoniously in the Thames.

Somehow the entire security apparatus in Britain has been thoroughly compromised by an evil (but very well-tailored) genius terrorist leader. Uniformed gunmen (many in police uniforms) are running wild in the streets and Butler’s character has his hands full trying to keep the president alive. Breaking necks, sticking knives in people (in one case to torture information out of a gunman) and shooting and shooting and shooting (sometimes the president gets in on the gunplay action), he cuts a swath.

The action is pumped up. The destruction is extreme. The whole thing is absurd.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 8:25 PM with the headline "Movie review: ‘London Has Fallen’ all too familiar."