Movies With Butter

Sorry for the late column, folks—better late than never, right? In any case, this weekend has offered up two films in the action vein—one of which takes itself a lot more seriously than the other, which is primarily a comedy.

The former of the two, the more strictly action film, is White House Down, the tale of the would-be Secret Services agent Cale (played by Channing Tatum), and his attempt to save the president (portrayed by Jamie Foxx) when paramilitary forces assault the White House, and chaos ensues (astute moviegoers might see a striking similarity to a film released a few months ago, Olympus Has fallen).

The film received a perfectly lukewarm 50% on the Tomatometer; while the Tatum-Foxx interplay is enjoyable to watch, director Roland Emmerich’s premise is trite at best, and the script and action don’t do anything to help the film’s mediocrity. Box Office Guru puts its weekend revenues at around $39 million.

This weekend’s other film has some punchy action as well, but is decidedly on the funnier side of things (well, it’s supposed to be, anyway)—from the twisted mind of Paul Feig (most famous for directing Bridesmaids) comes The Heat. The film features two very mismatched cops—one austere and high-strung, the other vulgar and laid-back, respectively played by Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy—who must join forces to take down a drug lord, amidst many-a comical mishap and gross-out laugh.

The critics of Rotten Tomatoes were a little kinder to this film—64%—however, this release suffers the same problem as White House Down, in that while the actor interaction is enjoyable, the script to support and use that chemistry just isn’t there. Nonetheless, the film is predicted to bring in $36 million over the weekend.

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