White House Down … movie thoughts

I think I would’ve enjoyed this movie a lot more if they had just been honest and marketed this movie as kind of a comedy.

As it is, I wasn’t super thrilled about it after watching Olympus Has Fallen earlier this year, thinking that they were pretty similar and all. As it turned out, Olympus definitely had the better initial siege of the two, although most of that movie was lost on me by also having the worst leaders of the free world in the world!!!

Seriously, if you have access to the launch codes, I don’t care if they’re threatening to filet your grandmother on the table in front of you – YOU. DON’T. GIVE. THEM. THE. CODES.

🙄   🙄   🙄

…anyways…

My biggest hang up going into this movie is that simply put, I couldn’t picture Jamie Foxx as the President. In fact, I still can’t picture Jamie Foxx as the President of the United States … but what I can picture him as is Jokey President of the United States! It didn’t start until about 1/3 into the movie, about when he made the executive decision to slip on his Presidential Air Jordans – that’s when I knew that this was in fact a very different movie than I had anticipated.

Unfortunately, I had a really hard time slipping out of action and into comedy at that point, so I couldn’t stand to give it much more than eye-rolls from there on, but if I’d just known going in that it was actually really a comedy???

• “Get your hands off my Jordans!”
• “I lost the rocket launcher.” “You lost … how do you lose a rocket launcher?!”
• *beats terrorist upside the head with an antique clock before proclaiming “Get out of My White House!”*

I think if I had sat down to watch this movie thinking, “Ok, this is going to be ridiculous…” then it might’ve been ok. But otherwise it’s hard to watch these two barreling around the White House lawn like the Dukes of Hazzard, the military all watching from the sidelines even though they’ve got a tank, and then elsewhere James Woods is feeling a little anxiety over his whole takeover plot and honestly think, “Yes – sitting down to watch this instead of several reruns of The Simpsons was a good idea.”

Ultimately I give it 2 and a half thumbs sideways, mostly because of Maggie Gyllenhaal. She had some pretty terrible lines, too, but she gets a pass – namely because she’s Maggie Gyllenhaal.

On second thought, why didn’t they make her the President?!?!?! Would’ve been just as believable, if not more, than Jamie Foxx!  😮

A lot more fun to watch with a rocket launcher, too…