Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 49% (Critics) / 73% (Audience)
Directed By: Roland Emmerich
Written By: James Vanderbilt
Starring: Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Woods
Studio: Sony Pictures

Synopsis:While on a tour of the White House with his young daughter, a Capitol policeman springs into action to save his child and protect the president from a heavily armed group of paramilitary invaders. (Source)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AXbiCdmXgw
The Good:
It was a smart move on the folks behind WHITE HOUSE DOWN’s part to go the more “buddy cop” route with this film than the more straight forwardly serious “DIE HARD in the White House” route that the similar OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN took. The chemistry between Jamie Foxx as the President and Channing Tatum as the wannabe Secret Service agent drafted into saving the day was the best part of this movie.

The Bad:
It amazes me that Roland Emmerich has been able to build a pretty snazzy career out of blowing up a few cities in INDEPENDENCE DAY because the guy is about as pedestrian a director as you are likely to find working in Hollywood today. He does nothing original with this film at all. Every action set piece is predictable and more than a little reminiscent of scenes from other movies.
Also the choices for villains in this film left a great deal to be desired…you need to have a Hans Gruber to root against in a movie like this and WHITE HOUSE DOWN does not give that to the audience.

The Ugly:
The fact that a movie with this high of a bloody body count gets a PG-13 rating but if Maggie Gyllenhaal were to let slip one of her breasts for 5 seconds it would have been deemed worthy of an R rating speaks volumes about how useless the MPAA has become as a ratings body.
And the political messaging of this movie was about as subtle as being hit in the face with a sock full of nickels.

Final Verdict: WHITE HOUSE DOWN is an oversize, overly loud and overly splashy bit of fluff and honestly I really don’t look for much more when it comes to big budget summer action movies. There is nothing new here but the film does feature a nice bit of chemistry between Tatum and Foxx that carries the movie more than anything that director Roland Emmerich can do with CGI and explosions.

Rating: C+