Last time we saw Gerard Butler’s grizzled Secret Service man Mike Banning he’d come out of retirement to kill half of North Korea in Olympus Has Fallen. While Kim Jong-un repopulates his kingdom, it’s left to a well-resourced arms dealer with a grudge to pose a major threat to a capital city. This time, as the movie’s new TV spot demonstrates in a blizzard of explosiveness, it’s London. Well, it was London.
Aaron Eckhart’s President, a world leader for whom every day is The Day Of The Jackal, is in the soup again. This time there’s a funeral in London – the PM has keeled over and his peers from across the globe are in attendance at St Paul's – and all the ingredients in place for a total security nightmare. Banning, earpiece at the ready, is there to stop that happening. As you can see from the TV ad, he doesn’t manage it.
Alongside Butler and Eckhart is a cast filled with acting, rather than action luminaries. Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Melissa Leo also appear and we’re guessing they'll be leaving the major fighting to Gerry B. Up against him is Alon Aboutboul as Aamir Barkawi, a man with a personal terrorist army that’s bigger than most actual armies. Only one can survive.
London Has Fallen arrives in UK cinemas on March 3.