Reviews & Ratings for
White House Down More at IMDbPro »

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35 out of 48 people found the following review useful:

White House Propaganda

Author: sycodon from United States
28 June 2013

It is inevitable that White House Down be compared to Olympus Has Fallen. Unfortunately, it compares poorly from the title on down.

The special effects lack the realism of OHF.

The action sequences are disjointed and downright goofy at times.

The bad guys are cartoonish and you get no sense of satisfaction when they are put down.

The plot is too complicated by half and really is not relevant to the action.

The movie ends with a whimper and a SNL quality perp walk of the character who is ultimately responsible for all the carnage.

But the worst thing is the crude, amateurish and transparent Left vs. Right political message in which it drapes all the other sub par elements. It is a Progressive's wet dream that really couldn't be any more wacko if you gathered 100 of Huffington Posts's top Super Users in a room festooned pictures of Dick Cheney and GWB, fed them mushrooms, and asked them to come up with the motivation for the bad guys.

But Good Guys shooting bad guys is always good and so are explosions. If you ignore the channeling of Nancy Pelosi, then you might get your money's worth at a matinée showing.

25 out of 29 people found the following review useful:

I Spent How Much on This?

Author: melvisu-724-177682
28 June 2013

I will start with the pros. This movie is packed with excitement, action, and CGI effects - almost start to finish. Now the cons: a blatant ripoff of both Die Hard and Olympus Has Fallen (which was a blatant ripoff of Die Hard); the most implausible story EVER; the absolute worst acting EVER with Jamie Foxx taking the lead. This movie should be reason enough to finally burn that guy's SAG card once and for all. And Channing Tatum, whom I normally like, was a close second. In fact, the only actor to give a good performance was the little girl who played Tatum's daughter.

Believe the reviews you read here. They are not exaggerations. If you must watch this, wait for Redbox!

37 out of 55 people found the following review useful:

a convoluted mess that's joyless and flat out dumb

Author: wang wang from United States
26 June 2013

White House Down offers very little that's new or interesting. It's a convoluted mess that's caught in no man's land. It takes itself far too seriously yet offers ridiculous action (ridiculous as in dumb, not as in wild or fun) and even more ridiculous characters. It wants to be taken seriously but functions in bizarre surroundings with a foolish plot. A calamity of underdeveloped ideas, half the film is flat out brain damaged and the other half is pure schlock. Do yourself a favor and avoid this dumb and actually boring farce.

This movie simply can't stand on its own as a film. Does often joyless, dark and dumb appeal to even the popcorn crowds? The rest of us want way more in our summer movies.

29 out of 41 people found the following review useful:

Whether or not you've seen the earlier 'Olympus Has Fallen', do yourself a favour and avoid this loud, dumb and boring poorer cousin that is best described as an utter farce

Author: moviexclusive from Singapore
25 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Forever etching his name on the 'blacklist' of the highest office in Washington, Roland Emmerich is back at destroying the official residence of the President of the United States. Alas, Emmerich has been beaten at his own game, his White House under siege premise coming less than six months after the similarly-themed 'Olympus Has Fallen'. Besides cast and character, both are essentially variations of the same movie - or to sum it up succinctly, 'Die Hard' on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And having lost the novelty factor to 'Olympus', what matters is only whether it is in fact a better movie than its predecessor, to which our answer is unfortunately a resounding no.

Yes, despite a bigger budget and perhaps more bankable lead stars (Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx are still surer box-office bets than Gerard Butler going by their respective track records), 'White House Down' is a disappointing letdown. To be fair, that ain't the fault of Tatum and Foxx, both of whom are the saving graces of an otherwise embarrassing exercise in hokum; instead, Emmerich and his screenwriter James Vanderbilt are squarely to blame here, the latter for throwing any semblance of logic out the window and the former for trying too hard to emulate Michael Bay.

Whereas 'Olympus' had the real-life threat of the North Koreans to lend some authenticity, Vanderbilt engenders none with his far-fetched premise of the President's Head of Secret Service, Walker (James Woods), recruiting a hodgepodge bunch of right-wing ex-military fundamentalists to kidnap the President and exploit his nuclear arsenal so as to wipe out America's enemies in the Middle East (here's looking at you, Teheran) off the map. The trigger for that? A G8 speech where current President, James Sawyer (Foxx), essentially tells the world that the U.S. will be pursuing peace diplomacy by taking the first step to lay down its weapons.

Despite a backstory that tries to explain Walker's motivations, there is little coherence to just how the Head of the President's Secret Service detail would be so compelled to attempt such an act of treason, let alone assemble a ragtag team of militarists with past criminal records and sneak them into the White House to aid his 'noble' cause. Ditto for the likelihood that a hacker, however brilliant he might be, could simply run a programme to crack the NSA's firewalls without even so much as alerting anyone else in the process - and may we add thereby precipitating a thoroughly laughable chain of swearing-ins that goes from the Vice-President to the Speaker of Parliament Raphelson (Richard Jenkins). If you thought 'Olympus' was just implausible, then 'White House Down' pretty much operates on its own system of reasoning.

Further turning the proceedings to farce is the buddy team of aspiring Secret Service agent John Cale (Tatum) and President Sawyer. A classic case of the right guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, Cale finds himself rising to the call of duty when the terrorists launch their attack just as he and his daughter Emily (Joey King) are on tour in the White House. But instead of repeating the formula of one man saving the day (or the President for that matter), Vanderbilt introduces a twist to the dynamics between Cale and Sawyer by turning them into partners - though how much it really does veer from the earlier cliché is questionable.

Nonetheless, Tatum and Foxx make a pleasantly amusing pair and are - truth be told - the best things that the movie has going for it. But the immediate trade-off of injecting comedy into a premise that intuitively demands a certain degree of solemnity is that you cannot quite take anything else that happens in it seriously afterwards. Nowhere is this more evident than in an utterly ludicrous sequence where Cale and Sawyer are in the President's limousine driving round and round the fountain in the middle of the White House lawn while being chased by the bad guys, the sheer stupidity of it matched by the fact that Sawyer is in the meantime figuring out how to assemble a mini rocket launcher in the back seat.

Whereas 'Olympus' kept its pacing taut by emphasising the gravity of the threat facing the nation, there is nary a frisson of tension even as Walker comes dangerously close to acquiring the President's nuclear commandership. Simply put, the self-aware humour that is the only reason why the movie remains watchable sits at odds with the self-serious tone in the last third of the film, and no number of fighter planes nor surface-to-air missiles can regain the credibility of its premise.

It doesn't help that the action, which consists largely of close combat fights, is surprisingly lacklustre, choreographed with neither finesse nor technique to distinguish one from the other. Wherever Emmerich gets the opportunity in the screenplay to stage the action against a wider canvas, he squanders that chance to make it count, the surfeit of CGI and excess making for a toxic combination that renders what is shown little more than an afterthought. Indeed, a similar sequence as that in 'Olympus' where the Special Forces attempt to land on the roof of the White House from helicopters unfolds with so little excitement that it might as well have been cut out altogether.

Therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with 'White House Down' - even as a summer popcorn flick, it just isn't thrilling enough. Emmerich tries to keep every frame busy - hence the countless number of times Tatum leaps over couches or slides over tables - but the action is just loud, dumb and plain boring. Only the humour between Tatum and Foxx manages to be entertaining, though it's hard not to regard the movie as farce afterwards. Call us biased, but we like our White House under siege thrillers to be hard-hitting, intense and gripping, none of which can be used to describe 'White House Down'.

- www.moviexclusive.com

37 out of 57 people found the following review useful:

Overblown, senseless and mind numbing not worth the price of a ticket!

Author: janmejay-vyas from United States
24 June 2013

I managed to catch an advance screening of this Roland Emmerich directed flick in the theaters last Tuursday. I particularly did not have any high expectations going into this movie partly because the director's previous duds and also because the trailer didn't particularly excite me. But, one thing Emmerich does is that he always mounts his films on a grand scale and I'm guessing most of you will agree with me on that. Be it, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow or 2012, you will always see a grand spectacle unfolding with a larger than life projection, and White House Down is not much different in that aspect.

So you have John Cale (Channing Tatum) vying for his dream job with the Secret Service protecting the President of United States (Jamie Foxx) for which he takes along his high on political IQ, daughter Emily (Joey King) for an interview in the White House. As indicated by the title of the movie, the timing could not have been any better as within minutes the building is taken down and held hostage by heavily armed in-house terrorists, who have their own personal agendas on mind. The initial scenes manage to get your attention with some nicely executed scenes of the siege of the most important building of the world. But alas, its all downhill from here. Clearly, this is not the place to ask for reasoning and logic. An event of such a magnitude, needs to have a very strong intent but when the purpose is gradually revealed you seem to feel simply let down and you seem to ask this question "Do the makers feel their audience is so stupid?" None of the characters stand out. I'm not asking a Joker show here but at least the antagonist needs to have his motive clear. Twists appear completely out of the blue, I mean it should be a good thing but there should always be a good justification so that all the bits and pieces join together to make the twist believable. Simply saying how would you react if Alfred from the Batman trilogy turned out to be the villain in the last scene.

Movies in which action does most of the talking, need to have deep rooted and believable characters, and this starts from the writing stage till the final casting but unfortunately this is one of the weakest aspects of the movie. I mean a simple way to gauge that would be to ask yourself, how badly you want the villain killed or the love story to end on a positive note or the leading man bash up the antagonist in the final act. In this movie, I felt none of those. I couldn't care less about any of the characters on screen, whatever happens I just want the lights back on ASAP, and that's not a good sign for any movie. On a positive note, you take back a couple of characters like Donnie (the guide) and Emily (Cale's daughter). Nicolas Wright as Donnie, the guide taking visitors on a trip inside the White House gets his timing right in most of the comic scenes he has particularly in the scene where Emily answers his questions beforehand or the scene where he takes a dig at blowing of White House in Roland's previous film Independence Day.

That's the only thing you take back from an otherwise overblown, out rightly dumb and a flat film which offers nothing new only other that the White House being blown to bits. At a runtime of almost 130 minutes, it feels long, tiring and chances are it'll leave you with a migraine. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone, it's not worth the price of a ticket. Grab a DVD cuddle up in your couch and watch the Independence Day again, it'll definitely be the two hours well spent.

21 out of 26 people found the following review useful:

Poorly done

Author: Doratca-724-951292 from United States
28 June 2013

Not only is this movie poorly done but it was not even enjoyable. Emmerich has really defined the meaning of 'implausible' and ludicrous. There are numerous obvious fallacies in the presentation of the security aspects of the film and the plot meanders. The movie seems to suffer from a identify crises, serious political thriller vs comedic quips. And it appears to be nothing more than a vehicle for Channing to perform impossible heroic stunts. I'm surprised Channing would include himself as a producer on this boring piece, very little different from Olympus Has Fallen of a couple months back. And it is an obvious promotion for the Obama administration-- you know Obama good and everyone opposed to him is bad.

18 out of 21 people found the following review useful:

Loud, Dumb and Overlong

Author: trublu215 from United States
29 June 2013

Now, this seemed like the perfect summer blockbuster. Two huge stars, an expensive budget and a director with a knack for action. What could go wrong? By the end of it, instead of what could go wrong, you'll be asking yourself what went right. The answer....barely anything. White House Down is not only dumb, it is downright idiotic. The plot is preposterous, the action sequences sub par and the acting is atrocious. Channing Tatum does his best Bruce Willis impression while Jamie Foxx turns in the worst performance of his career. The supporting cast lead by Maggie Gyllenhaal saves the terrible leads and are the sole reason I am not giving this a 1. Overall, this film is loud, long and boring, so much so, I can't imagine any adult with a functioning brain to enjoy this. I highly recommend to stay away from this stinker. If you want a great action film featuring the destruction of the White House, tune into Olympus Has Fallen.

13 out of 15 people found the following review useful:

Acting good, can't help but think of obama though....

Author: biker212007 (biker212007@yahoo.com) from Rapid City, SD
29 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The acting was really good on Tatum's and Foxx's parts. The plot and twists were actually pretty good. But what keeps bugging me about this film(reason why I gave it 5/10 instead of 8/10) is that the politics of the movie are a bit too real for what's currently going on in the white house, congress and in the media. I can't help but see how they are making Foxx look like Obama as this big "nice guy" who's out to protect the world and all of these "evil republicans" are forcing him into a corner.

If you like Obama then you will probably love this movie. This movie basically glorifies him in so many ways it's disgusting.

18 out of 25 people found the following review useful:

It's Like Being Kicked You Know Where for Two Hours

Author: Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY
28 June 2013

White House Down (2013)

1/2 (out of 4)

To quote Roger Ebert: "I hated, hated, hated this movie." Roland Emmerich's latest disaster is about a cop (Channing Tatum) who is taking his daughter on a tour of the White House when terrorist take it over and try to take the President (Jamie Foxx) hostage. Now the cop, whose daughter can't really stand him, must try to impress her by saving the day and her favorite President. For starters, go watch OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN as it's a much better action movie and deals with the same subject. I'm sorry but if Emmerich were making movies back in the 70s they'd be lucky to play third bill at a drive-in just before the sun comes up. I really can't wrap my brain around how someone can make such bad movies one after another. Is he doing it on purpose? Surely he didn't make this film as bad as it is without doing it on purpose. Everything from the story to the acting to the CGI effects are just downright bad and all of it has Emmerich's style behind it. I mean, were we really supposed to find this movie touching and patriotic? The Foxx character is obviously "inspired" by Obama but if this was meant to be a tribute then they failed because it comes across as really embarrassing. Even worse are the bits of comedy, which includes some of the worst one-liners that you're ever going to hear. Even worse still are the awful action scenes with some of the worst looking CGI action effects that you're going to see this side of a SyFy production. Then, you have an incredibly awful subplot dealing with the cop's teenage daughter who is a complete brat but they try to make her out as some sort of patriotic hero. This entire bit of the story is just a complete embarrassment and it made me cringe as I watched it. I won't call out the actress but it was just a really bad position that the director put her in and it's almost as bad as Jaden Smith in AFTER EARTH. Let's pray that the two never team up. Both Tatum and Foxx are clearly just picking up paychecks and the great character actors like James Woods, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Allen Jenkins are just wasted in worthless roles. There are some moments here that are so incredibly bad that I couldn't help but laugh at them but sadly the film runs way too long to enjoy it as simply an awful movie with laughs.

12 out of 15 people found the following review useful:

What was I thinking

Author: wictor80 from Indianapolis
29 June 2013

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Been working a lot of hours lately and called the Mrs. to say let's go see a movie. She brought this title up and I said sure, let's go. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not normally a guy who likes mindless action movies (Die Hard 1 was good, 2-10 not so much), but it had Foxx and Gyllenhaal in it, so it can't possibly be as bad as, say, Independence Day. But, without research, I didn't realize the movies came from the SAME GUY.

But ultimately I was right, ID was a 1 star and WHD is a 2.

Character and plot development? They didn't have time, they had 2 million rounds of various calibers to expend so it was laid out in the fastest most cliché manner possible.

I am a left leaning person but the "bad guys'" and their "motivations" were about a subtle as an anvil dropped on Wiley Coyote. And the bad guys were a grab bag of the worst nightmares of a liberal. It seemed like a Batman movie where the Joker, Riddler and Penguin all got together to fight the caped crusader Tatum. Really? The only saving grace was the $100 mil of CGI of the WH being blown up which offered momentary respite from the, gulp, dialogue.

My brain feels insulted and I feel sorry that Jamie and Maggie were so desperate for a payday, they appeared in this. It got so bad, I excused myself for the last 10 minutes to go to the bathroom because she bought large drinks. Thank God.

Next time, I pick the movie.

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