White House Down (AKA That Time My Own Brain Began To Hate Me)

2013 gave us two ridiculously implausible "terrorists invade and take over the White House" movies.  The first one to hit theaters, Olympus Has Fallen, was an ugly R-rated affair full of violence and rage and it was awesome.  The other movie made me wish someone would put on cleats and do jumping jacks on my eyes.  White House Down is awful in ways I can't even begin to describe, but that's not going to stop me from spending a few paragraphs trying.

First of all, I have no problem with the casting.  Channing Tatum is cool, he's making a nice little career for himself and he forever won me over with 21 Jump Street.  Jamie Foxx is whatever, I really have no opinion on him except that he has a little bit of a Kanye West ego vibe going on.  Richard Jenkins is always pretty good, Maggie Gyllenhaall looks like a hideous English bulldog and Jason Clarke and I will have personal beef if he screws up Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  BUT I have a hard time taking James Woods seriously after this: 

I can also suspend disbelief (what are movies for if not for the suspension of disbelief) and look past the gaping holes in White House security and the relative ease with which a band of FORMERLY GOVT. EMPLOYED MILITARY NOW TURNED MERCENARIES can pose as A/V repairmen and take down the entire on-site Secret Service security team.  Honestly, stuff like that doesn't even bother me.

But as soon as the redneck walks in nonchalantly gunning down dozens of highly trained agents casually shooting from the hip while not even aiming I was like:

After that we pretty much dove headfirst into every cliche and played out action movie trope that exists.  The cowardly yet wacky accomplice of the hero who finds his courage and helps save the day?  Check.  The mustache twirling villain whose plan makes NO SENSE from a logic standpoint and has to give the obligatory yelling "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHY I'M DOING THIS!" speech?  Check.  The wrong place wrong time hero who becomes the last chance for hope and redeems himself in the face of his doubters?  Check. A kid who's put in danger is continues to do stupid things than increase the danger level rather than just sitting there and quietly bawling?  Check.  And don't even get me started on the hacker.  He's eccentric, he WEARS GLASSES, he plays classical music while he hacks and he has an arsenal of sweets at his disposal.  I'm honestly surprised they didn't toss in a line about him being a virgin living in his parents' basement.

I could have looked past ALL that, though, if it wasn't for the damn diabetes.  I can just picture the screenwriters all sitting around giggling like Dan Charles at a One Direction concert (or me on the Harry Potter ride at Universal) when they wrote that line and repeatedly read it back out loud.  "This is gonna SLAY the audience LOL".  It took all I had not to turn it off right then and there.  In fact, if it wasn't for  my PS3 remote being dead and my wife draped across me in a comatose sleep, I probably would have.

While we're on the subject of lines, Tatum deserved a much better signature "vanquishing the bad guy" line than what they gave him.  In a world of "Yippee ki yay Motherf**er",  "Asta la vista, baby", and "Say hello to my little friend", his big final line was  "No jail for you, you little bitch".  And what makes that so bad is that I KNOW the writer backspaced hundreds of times trying to nail that line and THAT'S what they decided on.  I can only imagine the classics they rejected.  Personally I would've opted for: 

"You've heard of a pearl necklace?  WELL CHECK OUT THIS GRENADE NECKLACE!  BOOM BIGGEDY BANG, BOY!"

Now that I think about it, that needs to happen in a movie immediately.

"The President's got a rocket launcher!"  Yes, yes he does.  Now please use it on my face.