On one hand, all the bad press it received is fair. It's "terror-sploitation" and xenophobic. It's just an excuse to have a large scale shoot 'em up with a lot of explosions. The effects aren't great (A poor man's Rolland Emmerich movie). The cast is far better than what the story needs and none of them rise above the material. Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, and Morgan Freeman all have histories of giving up on movies if they are allowed to.
On the other hand, it was very easy to ignore this movie. Had I been stuck in a theater watching this, it would've been awful. From home, I could do whatever on my computer, look over to my TV screen occasionally to make sure London was still blowing up, and go back to look at cat gifs without feeling like I was missing anything.
One thing that bothered me more than it should is the R-rating. I don't like the MPAA or their rating system. The studios are stuck abiding to these arbitrary standards though and maneuvering accordingly. Normally, this means stupid things like the "One fuck rule"* or a film going through multiple edits until it can get down to PG-13, where it's likely to make more money. London Has Fallen appears to be taking the opposite strategy. This is easily a PG-13 movie. There's no nudity [that I remember]. The violence is fairly anonymous (mostly guys in suits and body armor getting shot) without a focus on being bloody. However, for some reason, they decided to say "fuck" a lot. And each time they said "fuck", my first thought was "someone's trying to get an R-rating." It's like they wanted to sit at the "big boy table" but didn't know how.
*Say "fuck" once: PG-13. Say "fuck" twice: R. I've also heard about a "one boob rule" which is how Titanic got PG-13. I haven't confirmed that one though.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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