Angel Has Fallen Movie Review: A Disappointing End to the Trilogy

Angel Has Fallen star Gerard Butler
Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler in Lionsgate’s ‘Angel Has Fallen’ (Photo Credit: Jack English)

“Mike Banning, you’re being charged with the attempted murder of the President of the United States,” says FBI agent Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith) to Secret Service Agent Banning (Gerard Butler) in the third entry of the action film franchise, Angel Has Fallen.

Mike Banning’s life is good and looking to get even better. He has a beautiful and loving wife (Piper Perabo), a cute baby daughter, and he’s about to be promoted to Director of the Secret Service. The only problem is that all the shootouts and fights he has endured in his line of work have left him with some fairly constant pain and discomfort.

It’s while Banning is guarding President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) on a fishing trip that he, the President, and the rest of the security team are attacked in an assassination attempt on Trumbull perpetrated via drones. Thanks to Banning’s quick thinking and immediate actions, he and Trumbull survive but are wounded. Trumbull ends up unconscious.

Banning is handcuffed to the bed when he wakes in the hospital. Shocked, he’s informed by the lead FBI agent investigating the assassination attempt that he’s being charged with trying to kill the United States President. With some unintentional help from the real assassination team, Mike escapes custody and goes on the run. He’s forced to evade the FBI and his own agency to clear his name and find out who set him up and who really wants the U.S. President dead.

Preposterous and unoriginal, Angel Has Fallen borrows heavily from superior action films including The Fugitive and Sniper. Unlike the first two installments, this third film of the series features unimpressive and sometimes blurred action scenes. It’s a dismal end to a film series that should never have attempted a trilogy.

So much is wrong with Angel Has Fallen it’s hard to know where to begin. The script is absurd, littered with dumb dialogue and ridiculous character motivations. The plot is predictable, and the real villains are painfully obvious long before they are revealed. The action scenes are horribly lit and choreographed.

Angel Has Fallen is such an awful and ludicrous movie that it sets a new low bar for action films.

GRADE: F

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language throughout

Release Date: August 23, 2019

Running Time: 114 minutes

Directed By: Ric Roman Waugh

Also of Interest: