White House Down 2013

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: What makes White House Down not just tolerable but frivolously entertaining is its slapstick soul ... Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Emmerich is an old hand at blowing up the White House and finds new wings as well as other national monuments to destroy: They blow up real good. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: If stripped of its production value, ''White House Down'' would make one hysterical off-Broadway one-act. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: 'White House Down' is, at certain moments, a good time in spite of itself. I, for one, was certainly glad when it was over. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: As demented and entertaining as promised, and a little less idiotic than feared. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "White House Down" is solidly within its genre. In a deeper sense, though, it bespeaks a fatigue that's hard to distinguish from brain death. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The chemistry of the lead actors mitigates the contrived setup and numbing explosions. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: [Emmerich's] slam-bang succession of dire situations - Don't kill that child! Don't launch those nukes! - is so relentless it becomes tedious. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: [A] welcome throwback to an earlier, more generously entertaining era of summer blockbusters ... Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: While White House Down isn't going to score points for originality, seriousness, or subtlety (Emmerich likes his political messages blunt and loud), it is a lot of fun; if nothing else, Emmerich is a great widescreen showman ... Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: The dialogue sometimes clunks. But the film also delivers the requisite thrills and action, and with strong, likable actors filling up the lead roles, it's the kind of exciting, escapist fare designed for summer viewing. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: Each nutty scenario is surpassed by the next, ludicrous story lines coalesce with expert orchestration, and absurd details return with perfect timing to build to a crescendo of hilarity. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: [A] hard-charging, fairly digestible thriller. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Emmerich isn't strenuous about setting a consistent tone. Action movie blow-ups are interlaced with dumb jokes and slapstick. He's an anything-for-effect guy, but some of his effects are none too effective. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Wonderfully orchestrated, mindless, summer-action fun. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: In Emmerich's universe, no one ever went broke underestimating the world's desire to see things go boom. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: The main difference between Emmerich and fellow maestros of mayhem like Michael Bay is that he actually seems to be in on the joke. He knows his movies are preposterous nonsense and he embraces it. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Tatum and Foxx's nigh-instantaneous camaraderie makes the alternately corny and convoluted routine of the rest a bit easier to take, even as Emmerich makes every effort to supplant intelligence with patriotism. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: White House Down is terrible. The acting? The effects? The villainy? All bad. The politics are a hot mess. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: There's scant originality here, but witnessing America's hearth and home under siege still brings an emotional frisson to the silly thrills. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: "White House Down" is a hoot and a half, a shameless popcorn entertainment that is preposterous and diverting in just about equal measure. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Fails to deliver on the campaign promise that it will be as fun as the original "Die Hard." Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: It's Independence Day without the aliens and a president partial to Air Jordans. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's the Die-Hard-in-the-White-House scenes that are the real stars - tightly framed and quickly paced scenes of mayhem, murder and hand-to-hand combat as an on-his-own Tatum tries to save the day. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: What isn't tonally jarring ends up shatteringly inept. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: You couldn't ask for a more fun summer popcorn movie than "White House Down." Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: It's a blatant attempt for the director to revive his box office fortunes by blowing up parts of the White House Complex as gaudily as he did 18 years ago. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: The main flaw of White House Down is that it overstays its welcome, thanks in large part to a silly climax that seems to unfold in three laborious acts. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It follows the Emmerich template: a spectacle-tinged, compelling setup; a dumb, disappointing midsection; and a cheese-topped denouement that veers so close to self-parody that one is tempted to call it funny. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Everyone in "White House Down" is an idiot, clinically insane, a cliche, or a vehicle for shameless exploitation. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: White House Down, rated PG-13 but as crass and cynical as a Michael Bay movie, is a depressing experience. A manufactured hit that plays to the basest instincts of its audience. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: The essential climate of the movie - the climate of hysteria, dysfunction and mendacity, backed up by an enduring, essentially optimistic and arguably idiotic culture of popular patriotism ... feels strikingly authentic to our historical moment. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: For pure enjoyment, for a good time at the movies, for something that will delight and exhilarate and send audiences out laughing, satisfied and thoroughly worked over, it's hard to imagine anything beating "White House Down." Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: In this season of solemnly manly blockbusters, I appreciated the boyish energy of White House Down, a movie that, for all its flamboyant destructiveness, has a playful innocence at its core. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "White House Down" is wonderfully violent and often laugh-out-loud funny, a shopworn premise resuscitated as a sweaty, rousing, ironic, intense, movie-love-reaffirming free-for-all. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It's full of malarkey, but as a campaign of shock and awe, it's hard to resist. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Essentially a louder, sillier version of Die Hard, with John Cale standing in for John McClane, a precocious daughter standing in for the plucky wife, and, alas, no one even much trying to stand in for Alan Rickman's deliciously wicked Hans Gruber. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Formula action films don't come much more formulaic that this. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: White House Down has exactly what you'd expect from [Emmerich] and from the genre, only louder and dumber. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: If all you're after is a pair of mismatched heroes wisecracking their way through a series of explosive, well-mounted set pieces, look no further. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: All the action scenes, as with many modern Hollywood blockbusters, are seemingly edited with a Cuisinart, or that the copious CGI would barely pass muster in one of those Asylum DTV quickies. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: White House Down stands as a singular achievement in parody, its auteur's intentions be damned. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: White House Down is the kind of celebration of rampant mayhem in which everyone seems to have a rocket launcher -- or at least a live hand grenade -- at the ready, just in case they need to dispatch a scrum of exceptionally vile and cruel villains. Read more