Review: 'London Has Fallen' Starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, More

Continuing its predecessor’s attempts to bring back the '90s, “London Has Fallen” is a slam-bang sequel that’s bigger, louder, and even more jingoistic and ultra-violent than its “Die Hard”-ish ancestor, 2013’s “Olympus Has Fallen.” Big-budget exploitation of the most headshot-happy order, it’s an action film drenched in clear-cut good-vs.-evil dynamics, profane post-kill one-liners, and rah-rah patriotic ass-kicking. Fantasies about Western democracies fighting back against their murderous Middle Eastern enemies don’t come much more blunt-force than this, with its eye-for-an-eye ethos summed up by its evil villain’s belief that “vengeance must always be profound and absolute.”

READ MORE: Review: 'Olympus Has Fallen' A Thin, High-Concept Actioner Without Much Bite

That baddie is Aamir Barkawi (Alon Moni Aboutboul), a notorious arms dealer of vague nationality who at film’s outset has sown geopolitical discord by providing weapons for a deadly Philippines massacre. No sooner has...