Inane, profane and wholly humourless, the Fallen trilogy would be beyond redemption were it not for the thirsty work of its star
The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics states that every possible outcome to every decision ever made will each happen, and each outcome exists in its own parallel universe. I am telling you this because Angel Has Fallen – the third of Gerard Butler’s Has Fallen series, is released this week – and I’m taking it as proof that we all live in the wrong universe.
Cast your mind back to 2013. As with The Prestige and The Illusionist in 2006, or Armageddon and Deep Impact in 1998, two films with the same premise were released in quick succession. In both, terrorists storm the White House. But only one of them was any good. That film was
White House Down, in which Channing Tatum, in his first charismatic rush of true moviestardom, swaggered and winked his way through an insurmountable wall of danger. It was far too stupid to win any awards but, as encapsulated in the scene where Tatum admonishes the president for bonking him on the head with a rocket launcher, its stupidness was self-aware.