This latest bit of Hollywood "propatainment," "Olympus Has Fallen," is basically "Die Hard" in the White House, with Gerard Butler's disgraced former Secret Service agent trying to save the president (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of crack North Korean commandos who plan to pry America's nuclear launch codes out of him by torturing his young son.
Apparently it was Chinese commandos to start with, but I guess China is a moviegoing market worth not alienating, so it was either Kim Jong Un or Dr. Evil. (Although I'd bet good money a movie where the Chinese military takes over the White House would play pretty well in Beijing.)
So many are the films where America is attacked, and so few are the ones where they go around attacking people, which may seem curious to those of us who still reside in this dimension and not a parallel one. America — which spends almost as much on its military as the rest of the world's defense budgets combined — is once again the outnumbered underdog, with the White House's Secret Service agents perishing to the last man as a tattered Old Glory is lowered from the flagpole in defeat. Until, that is, the good guys regroup and kick some terrorist butt. USA! USA! USA!
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.