Yes, the White House already got overrun by terrorists in movie theaters in 2013. You’re seeing double.
Releasing dueling movies like “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” or “Tombstone” and “Wyatt Earp” (or even “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak,” for good measure) make as much sense as most of the dialogue within them.
But here we have two president taken hostage action flicks where some Secret Service dude goes all John McClane in the West Wing. The first, “Olympus Has Fallen” (released this spring) actually brought an old school, pure 90s B-movie swagger we haven’t sene in the action genre in a while with Gerard Butler in his element kicking terrorist butts.
Most thought that was the lesser release, given its spring distribution and the fact that “Independence Day” chaos maestro Roland Emmerich was behind this June’s “White House Down,” starring Channing Tatum as the Secret Service hero this time and Jamie Foxx as the commander-in-chief.
We finally got a new trailer for this particular version of “Die Hard” in the White House, as they tend to in Emmerich’s canon, things go boom. Namely, the Capitol Building and other D.C. landmarks blow up real good for the sake of our escape-seeking, popcorn-munching hearts.
But are we really looking for big city mayhem these days in light of recent events? I supposed Hollywood studios can’t pull the plug on everything, but you can’t help but look back at when the Associated Press Twitter account got hacked with “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”
You think folks are already looking forward to another movie-fied version of that?
Jamie Foxx was inevitably asked, but he says he didn’t base much of his own presidential character on Barack Obama. Think more Harrison Ford’s “Air Force One” defender of the free world and enforcer when the country needs him, meaning Foxx totes a machine gun in this thing, too.
There is literally even a scene where Foxx’s sports show-wearing prez is kicking a terrorist in the face while saying, “Get your hands off my Jordans!” Not kidding.
“White House Down” opens in theaters nationwide on June 28. Watch the trailer below:
