Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of ANGEL HAS FALLEN?

On August 23rd, Angel Has Fallen, the third movie in the Fallen Trilogy, will be released. The film stars Gerard Butler as Mike Banning and Morgan Freeman as Allan Trumball.

In Angel Has Fallen, authorities take Secret Service agent Mike Banning into custody for the failed assassination attempt of U.S. President Allan Trumbull. After escaping from his captors, Banning must evade the FBI and his own agency to find the real threat to the president. Desperate to uncover the truth, he soon turns to unlikely allies to help clear his name and save the country from imminent danger.

Find out what critics thought of Angel Has Fallen below!

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Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

Gerard Butler showed signs of becoming a more riveting actor in last year's "Den of Thieves" (sharp dialogue becomes him), but "Angel Has Fallen" is yet another movie that turns him into a monosyllabic granite-souled neo-Bronson. It reduces him, in the process, to being a macho lox. As staged by director Ric Roman Waugh, the film's hand-to-hand combat is so routine it's deadening - and, for that matter, so is its assault-rifle-to-assault-rifle combat. At times, with Banning in the role of unjustly pursued renegade, the whole thing plays like a generic "Bourne" knockoff.

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter:

Angel Has Fallen may not be appreciably better than the first two installments of this lower-middle-range Mission: Impossible wannabe franchise, but it's actually more fun - first and foremost because of a vastly amusing turn by Nick Nolte as Gerard Butler's eccentric Vietnam vet old coot father. Outfitted with a dizzying body count and robust R-rated mayhem, this late summer action entry brandishes a small war's worth of bloody violence and heavy artillery to lure boys young and old to theaters, where the 2013 and 2016 entries both landed in the $200 million box office range worldwide.

Tim Grierson, Screen Daily:

Three films in, Butler is entirely comfortable as this cookie-cutter action hero, never really challenging himself but also not striving to make the character seem more magnificent than he is. In truth, Banning's blue-collar ordinariness is his distinguishing characteristic, and he's surrounded by performances that are equally unfussy. Freeman is suitably enjoyable in his approximately millionth role as a sage authority figure, while Huston and others stay out of the way as supporting players. After the sorry spectacle and blatant xenophobia of London Has Fallen, it's almost a relief that Angel is merely a competent, second-rate action vehicle. This trilogy's ambitions have never been particularly high, but at least this third chapter's fleeting junk-food pleasures aren't undermined by base pandering.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire:

"Angel Has Fallen" is the kind of movie that leaves you feeling restless and thinking about dinner long before the third act, but anyone who sticks it out until the bitter end will be rewarded with one of the greatest mid-credits sequences ever devised. Marvel should be quaking in its boots. Not because this steaming, $80 million ash heap of retro mediocrity is a threat to the company's reign, but rather because the MCU will never be able to compete with the kicker that Butler's trilogy serves up here.

Joey Esposito, IGN:

Angel Has Fallen still can't match the fun, over-the-top, highest-stakes-possible action romp of Olympus, but does offer a fresh perspective on this world that's a little less self-important than its predecessor. The action is aggressively mediocre in a post-John Wick world, but there are more than a few inspired action beats sprinkled throughout. The action failings might be forgivable if the movie committed to the potential themes it toys with, but unfortunately, it resigns itself to resting comfortably in middling action movie territory, with only the performances of its leading cast to elevate the material and help it across the finish line.

Mike McCahill, The Guardian:

That said, there are diverting ideas to cancel out: as with Den of Thieves, Angel falls into the "lively mediocrity" category of Butler schlock, with one or two plot hikes that suggest the script meetings were well-refreshed. How else to explain our hero's reunion with his grizzled hermit father (Nick Nolte, unintelligible), save that the producer-star also really enjoyed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? Or the finale, in which Huston's hackers turn a hospital against itself? Everything's too dashed off to make much of these flickers of inspiration, but flickers it has, and Butler is becoming a low-key selling point, taking this nonsense laudably seriously. You'd draw the line at his Bad Boys, but he may have a Hard Target or Under Siege in him yet.

Jeff Sneider, Collider:

In the end, however, it all comes down to the buddy movie-like chemistry shared by Butler and Nolte, the latter of whom gets most of the film's best one-liners. It may very well be Nolte's best performance on the big screen since his Oscar-nominated turn in 2011's Warrior. And while it's crazy to think about, Mike Banning just might be the role that Butler is ultimately remembered for. It just comes easy to him, like Bryan Mills did for Liam Neeson in Taken. The character fits him like a glove. Banning isn't as flashy as, say, Butler's star-making turn as King Leonidas in Zack Snyder's 300, but he gets the job done, just as he gets it done here... again. I don't know what will be "falling" next, but it's comforting to know that Mike Banning will be there when it does. Here's hoping he keeps his dear old dad on speed dial though.

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