London Has Fallen

Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is with the president (Aaron Eckhart) when a trip to London for the prime minister’s funeral erupts in a massive terrorist strike; several world leaders get their tickets elaborately punched, but it’ll take more than a few hundred terrorists to get past Banning. The inevitable sequel to 2013’s guilty pleasure Olympus has Fallen doubles down on the guilt while losing the pleasure in sadistic monotony and narrative confusion. The new director, Babak Najafi, fails to replicate the gritty style with which Antoine Fuqua infused the original—either that or he doesn’t even try. Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell and Robert Forster also return from before, all overqualified and underused. J.L.