The sequel to the sequel will not be 'Lahore Has Fallen'. The sequel will not exist, should reason prevail, not least since if it follows the trajectory of quality within this non-franchise to date, it would be literally worthless. The campy craziness of Olympus Has Fallen has been replaced with a further excess of jingoism masquerading as heroism in London Has Fallen - as unsurprising as it is unwelcome, and blatantly inappropriate, given that a plot structured around the rescue of the American president in a film where 19 other world leaders have been murdered and the British capital has been decimated seems like an obvious misappropriation of energy. The presence of black actors in the ensemble doesn't help to ease the passing of this film's caustic racism - they're accepted only by virtue of their assimilation into a white-dominated cultural scheme, feted for their suspicion of people of other nationalities and ethnicities. London Has Fallen is a gun-toting, flag-waving salute to white, heterosexual, macho American brutality, insensitivity and supposed superiority, even more so than its predecessor, and even less excusable as such. Babak Najafi's single-shot trick in the action sequences is an unsuccessful attempt at distracting attention from the monotony of relentless gunfire and the moral toxicity that's fuelling it; it's an even less successful attempt at distracting from Gerard Butler's stunt double though. Najafi will reclaim my respect when he gets 'Lahore Has Fallen' greenlit. Not that I'll see it anyway. This is one of the worst films I've sat through.
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