Gerard Butler

Gerard Butler’s environmental disaster movie Geostorm is in a perfect storm of its own. Most of the time, when news leaks out that a film is undergoing reshoots, a bigger deal is made of it than it actually deserves. The two big ones this year were Suicide Squad and Rogue One, which both seemed to have changed huge parts of their stories months before their release. Geostorm is the latest movie to enter reshoot hell, but that’s not all: it’s also getting a new director.

Oh my god, that TITLE. It’s impossible to imagine the scenario in which this title was decided on unanimously by a group of rational adult humans. What comes after Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen? Angel, clearly. But the title of the next installment in the Help, Gerard Butler, the President Has Fallen and He Can’t Get Up series is Angel Has Fallen, which does not refer to David Boreanaz or Roma Downey and Della Reese, but to Air Force One.

The Wikipedia page for Gods of Egypt says “Lionsgate anticipated [it] to be the first film in a new franchise after it finished releasing The Hunger Games films.”

Gods of Egypt is looking to get in on some of that Super Bowl hype with its very own prime TV spot, which has arrived online ahead of tomorrow's big game, proving that even the most ridiculous movies need some Super Bowl attention — actually, this one could really use it. Alex Proyas' new fantasy-action film has drawn plenty of scorn for its mostly-white cast and its abundance of CGI silliness, and the best case scenario is that we've found this year's Winter's Tale.

Gods of Egypt is a big budget project that sort of came out of left field, but the negative feelings inspired by its trailer and promotional materials are quite familiar. Set in Egypt, the new film from director Alex Proyas features a mostly white cast, recalling Ridley Scott’s unfortunate casting choices for Exodus: Gods and Kings. But unlike Scott, Proyas and Lionsgate are expressing remorse for the decision by issuing public apologies.

The text says this is Gods of Egypt. And I recognize some of the actors here: Gerard Butler as Set, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus, Brenton Thwaites as Bek. And I know the director, Alex Proyas, a talented visual stylist who’s made films like the original Crow, Dark City, and Knowing. But what the hell did they make? Unlike so many of these big, loud wannabe blockbusters, Gods of Egypt isn’t a remake of an old movie, or based on a comic book or a video game. And it’s got big crazy CGI effects and Gerard Butler ripping out Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s eyes, and then people fighting giant fire-breathing snakes, and flying dudes with wings. It’s like the Clash of the Titans remake made a baby with Immortals, and then the baby got beat up by 300. Just weird weird weird.

After separate uproars were raised following studio decisions to cast a well-bronzed Jake Gyllenhaal as Middle Eastern in Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time and a comparably well-bronzed Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, and Aaron Paul as Egyptians in Exodus: Gods and Kings, one might imagine that Hollywood executives would get the picture and stop passing white performers off as other races... Read

If you’re at all familiar with Olympus Has Fallen, the surprise 2013 hit about an attack on the white house (no, not White House Down, the other one), you know it was a fairly ridiculous action movie. As is the case with all sequels, you need to go bigger for the follow-up and London Has Fallen does not disappoint: it is exponentially more ridiculous than the first film.

Look I’m just going to say it: Someone in the Secret Service should be fired. I know the whole point of the Has Fallen series is how Gerard Butler’s Secret Service Agent Mike Banning is a hero who protects Aaron Eckhart’s President from terrorists around the globe. But shouldn’t the Secret Service protect the President so he doesn’t get into these kinds of scraps? Mistakes happen, and I’m willing to allow this sort of thing to happen once. But twice? At a certain point we have to take a long hard look at our security apparatus.

Olympus Has Fallen was definitely — and surprisingly — the better of the two big White House action movies released in 2013 (the other being White House Down, of course). The film certainly has its fans, and those fans will be bummed to learn that the upcoming sequel, London Has Fallen, has been delayed to 2016.