Another action movie featuring the president of the United States? Seriously? From the peak of “Air Force One” to the low of “Olympus Has Fallen” (sorry about that), we’ve seen it all. The makers of “White House Down” tell us we haven’t seen the version starring Channing Tatum as a wannabe secret agent who tries to save day when a terrorist group invades the white house and captures president Jamie Foxx. Tatum doesn’t take his shirt off this time around, but he certainly looks like a hero and that’s what makes the movie seem a lot better than it is (I’m not kidding). To be fair to action junkies I should say that if you like watching things blow up, you won’t be bored. But the almost non-stop chaos in this film—including huge explosions, bullet-ridden battles, and Tatum trying to protect the president—comes with a catch. It doesn’t always look real. Director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, “2012”) and his team stage the action scenes well enough, but at 131 minutes, the movie doesn’t know when to quit. Tatum and Foxx are both enjoyable to watch and each earns a star in my review. The rest is the absence of silence. Just the noise and cheeseball techniques that Emmerich regularly substitutes for intelligence and wit. He is a Hollywood director after all; one shouldn’t expect miracles.

Rating: 2/4