London Has Fallen delivers exactly what its target audience wants

REVIEW: Flagrantly macho, flamboyantly stupid and yet somehow consistently entertaining, London Has Fallen delivers exactly what its audience wants.

London Has Fallen (MA15+)

Director: Babak Najafi (Easy Money II)

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Alon Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell.

Rating: **1/2

We now pronounce you man and knife

A plain-wrapped, blood-soaked guilty pleasure from beginning to end, this sequel to the unlikely 2013 action hit Olympus Has Fallen delivers exactly what its target audience wants.

Flagrantly macho, flamboyantly stupid and yet somehow consistently entertaining, London Has Fallen charts the ongoing alpha-male adventures of Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler).

Though Mike and his missus (Radha Mitchell) are expecting their first child, don’t go assuming this screw-loose protector of the US President (Aaron Eckhart) has tightened up his act in the years he’s been away,

Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart headline the flagrantly macho action movie. Picture: Grammercy Pictures/Focus Features/AP.

Nope, once he joins the Prez on a state visit to Great Britain, Banning proves to be as crabby and stabby as he ever was.

With the British Prime Minister having recently passed away in suspicious circumstances, the leader of every nation on the globe (except for the North Koreans, still in the sin bin after storming the White House in Olympus Has Fallen) has hit London to pay their respects.

As luck would have it, every insane Middle Eastern-ish terrorist currently not on the ISIS payroll are in town as well.

On the vengeful say-so of disgruntled arms dealer Aamir Barkawi (Alon Aboutboul), international heads of state begin dropping like flies all over the city.

Seeing as how Barkawi is still barking mad about the US-ordered drone strike that killed his daughter, it is only a matter of time before the President will be peppered with enough ammo to start and stop several world wars.

Butler returns for London Has Fallen after the successful Olympus Has Fallen. Picture: Susie Allnutt/Grammercy Pictures/Focus Features/AP.

Guess who won’t be having any of that? As the most tactless tactical-response man to have ever lived (a skill set he puts down to “many years of bourbon and bad choices”), Mike Banning lashes out at any potential assassin with a flurry of blades, bullets and bare fists.

But mainly, blades. Banning’s obsessive use of knives became a bizarrely popular factor in the success of the first film, and that garotting gimmick has only been expanded further here.

While a third instalment of this gung-ho goofballery would be severely testing the friendship, London Has Fallen cuts it where it counts.