Screenplay Review: Olympus Has Fallen by CARSON REEVES
The reason I wanted to review Olympus Has Fallen was simple: Action. Producers want action scripts. Why? Action films have the potential to make more money than any other genre because action sells everywhere. The guy who lives in the middle of the desert in Nigeria isn’ t going to turn on an action movie and go,“ Wait, what’ s going on? I don’ t understand. Why are things blowing up?” Blowing-up is a universal language.
Artistically, I have a problem with this. It hurts to admit that the writing of a movie doesn’ t matter to the guy in Spain who doesn’ t understand English. As long as his action appetite is satiated with enough car chases and explosions, he’ s happy. To that end, it’ s appropriate to point out that the most important aspect of an action spec is the concept. If you’ ve got something a little unique that we haven’ t seen before that has the potential for a lot of great action scenes, your spec has a chance of getting picked up.
But here’ s why that’ s not all you need, despite most writers believing that’ s the case. The guy in Nigeria may not be discerning of what your love interest’ s backstory is. But the guy at a studio desk in Hollywood is. You see, he gets hundreds of action scripts to read. So he’ s going to be weighing all of them against each other. Concept will be the biggest determinant. But he’ s also looking at execution, originality, castablity, character, etc. Therefore, contrary to popular belief, quality does matter.
Mike Banning is your typical secret service agent. The guy is big. Looks former athlete’ ish. Flashes that alpha male smile. Or at least, he USED TO flash a smile. Not after tonight though. While hanging with the prez at Camp David, Banning is unable to save Mrs. President from falling through the ice pond and dying a cold airless death! Banning never mentally recovers from the ordeal, and when we cut to two years later, we see that he’ s now a Secret Service GROUP agent. That’ s, like, the level BELOW the lead agents!
Olympus has fallen? More like Banning has fallen! Right after the First Lady has fallen. Through the ice!
President Benjamin Asher doesn’ t have time to dwell on dead wives though. Tensions are heating up between North and South Korea, and decisions have to be made on how the U. S. will respond. South Korea’ s new president decides to come to the U. S. to personally ask the president for help, but soon finds out he’ s got his own secret service issues. Once in the White House, the head of his security, a nasty little bugger named Kang, snaps his fingers and his entire team enacts a plan to take over the White House! Looks like Kang is secretly North Korean! And he’ s come here to re-unite his country with his Southern brothers!
In the meantime, Banning is off on the outskirts of the city doing some menial task when he sees a bunch of explosions and stuff in the distance. So he hops in a sewer and starts the long underground trek to the White House. At some point during his smelly stroll, Kang reveals that he wants the codes to a secret defense project called“ Cerberus.” Everyone in the U. S. cabinet looks at each other with bulged eyes. How does he know about Cerberus???? But that should be the least of their worries. Because it turns out Kang isn’ t here to re-unite the Koreas like originally assumed. His plan is MUCH more terrifying!
Well, I’ ll say this. Olympus Has Fallen is better than most amateur action scripts I’ ve read. Which may sound like good news. The problem is, I rarely come across a good amateur action script. That’ s because most action writers just focus on the explosions. They don’ t realize that the totality of explosions equals in a movie is maybe 2 minutes long and that there needs to be this thing called a, um, STORY in between.
Olympus has a story. But besides a few nice flashes( literally) in the first half, it’ s a little too standard. I’ m thinking the studio must have really REALLY loved this concept( concept is BIG in action scripts! Don’ t bother writing an action spec without one!), because they allowed for a bit too much in the cliché department. In my opinion, if you’ re going to write an action film, you gotta give us something different here and there. And there WERE some cool moments. For example, I liked when the North Korean plane came in and set off that
84 | WGSA MAG June 2013