Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Angel Has Fallen Blu-ray Movie Review

. . .and he can't get up.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 14, 2019

Sometimes public relations marketing hype can provide at least a wry smile or two, if not outright laughter. Case in point: the press sheet accompanying the film currently under review breathlessly touts that this is “the latest stand alone installment of the full throttle Has Fallen action series”. That may strike some grammarians as at least a little oxymoronic, in terms of combining “stand alone” with “series”, but what really made me chuckle a bit was this nascent franchise being labeled with the (to me, anyway) kind of funny Has Fallen moniker. But of course there have been previous “Has Fallen” entries, beginning with 2013’s Olympus Has Fallen and then continuing on with London Has Fallen. Olympus Has Fallen wasn’t exactly met with critical love letters, though it did reasonably well at the box office, but London Has Fallen was met with pretty withering critical assessments, which of course means that it was a pretty massive box office hit, raking in well over 200 million, which obviously helped pave the way for this latest installment. Angel Has Fallen is arguably better than its immediate predecessor, which may in fact be damning with faint praise, but the film knows what it wants to deliver and does so in a reasonably engaging fashion.

The Has Fallen series (and, yes, I am giggling a little bit) has never been a prime example of innovative screenwriting, but Angel Has Fallen is in some ways the most rote of all three of the enterprises thus far. Once again Gerard Butler is on hand as Mike Banning, continuing his career as a Secret Service agent, but in this installment increasingly troubled by a number of “issues”, including everything from headaches to an injured back. Banning still has the confidence of President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), but when tragedy strikes and Trumbull is left seriously injured, Banning himself becomes the chief suspect, in one of Angel Has Fallen’s most derivative story elements. Adding to the predictability factor is ultimate denouement vis a vis the “real” villain, who will be almost instantly identifiable to any fan of this kind of movie, making the reveal of this character and his or her ulterior motives more than a little anti-climactic. Suffice it to say when a character states "We're all friends here" among other blandishments in the first scene featuring that character, chances are a supposed "twist" is in the offing. To Angel Has Fallen's credit, however, this chain of events unspools rather quickly by today's action adventure thriller standards, without the traditional wait until the third act for everything to become clear (or at least clearer).

Kind of interestingly (and maybe even a little amazingly), Gerard Butler mentions Logan as one of the “templates” (Butler’s term) for Angel Has Fallen, which may surprise some given the fact that Mike Banning has virtually no adamantium claws at his disposal and that (minor spoiler alert coming for both this film and Logan) he survives to fight another day (and in another presumed Has Fallen ) by the time to story wends its way to its expected happy ending. Another film Butler mentions, The Fugitive, may in fact be easier to see, with Banning on the run fromm all sorts of pursuers, including dedicated FBI agent Helen Thompson (Jada Pinkett Smith), not to mention the hordes of henchmen at the chief villain’s disposal.

Angel Has Fallen tries desperately to inject some actual human emotion into proceedings which otherwise seem to be largely focused on things that go boom (and a lot of things go boom in this movie). That approach includes Mike’s wife Leah (Piper Perabo) and perhaps more saliently his estranged father Clay (Nick Nolte, looking not much different from his now infamous mug shot). The relationship that actually ends up resonating the most, though, is the one with the most “history” within the franchise itself, namely the one between Mike and Trumbull. There’s an appealing camaraderie between Butler and Freeman that makes that part of the film rather engaging, even if many of the plot trappings surrounding the relationship are patently ridiculous.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf may have liked Angel Has Fallen at least incrementally more than I did. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Angel Has Fallen Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Angel Has Fallen is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists several Arri Alexa models as having been utilized on the shoot, with everything finished at a 4K DI. This is a largely sharp and extremely well detailed looking presentation, albeit one that is often swathed in what I might term "thriller blue". Perhaps surprisingly, despite a number of aggressively graded sequences and other scenes that take place in near darkness, fine detail is generally very commendable throughout. Fine detail is very precise looking in better lit scenes, to the point that you can actually see the tiny veins running through Butler's eyes. CGI is a bit soft at times, and one composite in the hospital scene showing Banning helping Trumbull escape the maelstrom is almost comically bad. The very darkest scenes, including a couple of night sequences, show at least moderate declines in detail levels. I noticed no major compression anomalies.

Angel Has Fallen Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Angel Has Fallen offers a really fun and immersive Dolby Atmos track, one that utilizes the surround and Atmos channels fairly aggressively at times, starting with the kind of swooping and thumping cues from David Buckley's score that start the film (there's a nicely evocative low end droning sound that is repeatedly utilized to up the angst level at various junctures). Speaking of drones, there's a great set piece in the film featuring an "army" of drones that attack the President and that scene offers some of the best overhead and panning activity in the film. Other big action moments, like a crazy truck chase, or several gigantic explosions that occur, offer bursts of LFE that can be quite impressive. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free and very enjoyable track.

Angel Has Fallen Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Even Heroes Fall: The Story (1080p; 8:35) is an okay overview with some potential spoilers.


• Someone to Watch Over Me: New Blood (1080p; 13:02) talks about director and co-writer Ric Roman Waugh, one of the supposed "new" folks associated with this film.


• Calling All Angels: Casting (1080p; 18:13) focuses on the supporting actors.


• True Faith: Authenticity (1080p; 12:47) addresses the filmmakers' perhaps questionable quest to keep things as realistic as possible.


• Fights for You: Stunts and Action (1080p; 9:39) is a fun look at some of the film's set pieces.


• Earth Angel: Recreating DC (1080p; 6:25) addresses some of the challenges of shooting overseas and basing much of the film in Washington, DC.


• Angel Declassified (1080p; 8:38) provides some behind the scenes looks at two of the film's big set pieces, as well as the completely silly isolation tank coda.

Additionally, there's a brief Introduction with Gerard Butler (1080p; 00:19) that plays automatically at disc boot up, with Butler (who also co-produced) thanking folks for buying the disc and inviting them to come back after having watched the film to sample the supplements to find out how the film was made.

Angel Has Fallen Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the things that always makes me wonder a bit in films like this is the so-called "collateral damage" that is never really ever addressed. It's one thing to take out a force of bad guys, but this film includes a number of deaths or implied deaths of not just good guys but innocent bystanders (notably in the climax where a hospital, yep, goes boom). Niggling concerns like that are probably the domain of folks like me who overthink movies like this, but for those willing to go with the flow, Angel Has Fallen is brisk and generally exciting, even if it's resolutely rote almost all of the time. Technical merits are first rate and the supplemental package quite enjoyable, for those who are considering a purchase.