Olympus has Fallen

At least it's not G.I. Joe.

Olympus has Fallen is a pure action movie with little in the way of plot.  It's about the white house getting overrun by enemy forces, who are able to occupy it and take the president hostage.  Gerard Butler pretends to be an American patriot and former secret service agent, who is totally not stifling a Scottish accent, and is our country's only hope of stopping the threat and saving the president.

You'd think there'd be a small army of people around the white house who could stop something like this happening, and there is.  Unfortunately a few dozen guys dressed as tourists are able to create what becomes an obscene body count in this film.  There was no way to count how many people are killed on screen, but it has to be in the hundreds.

Worst Harlem Shake ever.

It's hard to find anything remarkable about this movie.  The plot is absurdly implausible, and only serves as a vehicle for all the violence to take place.  Nothing stands out other than the body count and action, which are at least done well enough to make the movie exciting.  It'll get your heart going and you might silently cheer to yourself when Butler gets his small victories, so you could still say it's entertaining.

Can't say I really recommend this film, but it is a passable way to spend some time, and it was decent enough to not make me hate myself while filling the gap before the summer movie season starts.

"You are now reading this in my voice. Titty sprinkles."

Oblivion

This is a difficult movie to write about without just saying you should go see it for yourself.  I try to stay spoiler free here, and this movie takes so many turns that it's hard to describe it without ruining something.

Let's give it a shot anyways.

Oblivion is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth (sort of).  About 60 years before the the story begins, aliens showed up out of no where and destroyed the moon, and with it much of the Earth was ravaged by natural disasters.  Then the invasion began (maybe).  The humans won the war (or did they?) and now Tom Cruise and his companion are cleaning up and gathering the last of the supplies humanity will need as they move to Titan (or will they?).

You see, there are a lot of questions brought up in the backstory, and it's not helpful that Cruise and his wife's memory had to be wiped before they began their mission on earth 5 years prior (or was it something else? GAH!).  The film does a good job of filling you in on key details at a snails pace, always leaving you guessing and trying to figure it out.  Uncovering the mystery is a big part of the enjoyment you get from this movie, so I'll stop talking about the plot now and let you do it yourself.

Is that the dick from Game of Thrones?  Watch and see.

Visually this movie is amazing.  Every sequence out in the open desolate world looks truly gritty and abandoned, with hints of the civilization that used to be there.  What I loved most was the clean futuristic environments like you see in their little outpost home and [spoiler removed].  They're heavily influenced by my favorite movie, Wall-E, and in turn another certain sci-fi space odyssey...

To say this movie makes nods to 2001 is like saying Pamela Anderson is a little chesty.

Overall I enjoyed this movie quite a bit.  It was a big budget sci-fi epic that delivered with a deep twisting story.  Whether you like Tom Cruise or not as a person should have nothing to do with it, he's still a solid actor who holds this movie up.

You also get to look at her a lot, so that's nice.