“White House Die Hard …” um, I mean “Olympus Has Fallen” (2013) was actually a really good movie – I’d give it a 9 out of 10.  The action scenes were goddam fantastic – especially the early set piece illustrating in detail how the terrorists gain control of the White House and even its underground bunker.  And it was pretty damned scary, showing scores of grisly civilian deaths.  This is the kind of hard-hitting thriller from which that the increasingly family-friendly “Die Hard” franchise eventually devolved.

I had no idea that conventional armed forces were 15 minutes away from the White House (if what the movie says is correct).  Why can’t the government just rent/lease some of those office buildings and house some tanks and APC’s in there along with troops?

The parallels with Die Hard are many.  There’s even a doomed rooftop helicopter assault, in which the hero tries to warn the authorities of an unseen threat – then nearly falls to his death after combatting the threat.

This was still a damned good movie, though.  I really liked it.

Question – I’m sure they couldn’t have filmed the frontal assault at the entrance to the White House … did they build an identical set and CGI it into a DC background?  I sure as hell couldn’t tell the difference.