The current king of the Ultimate Friday Night Movie.
When you hear the words "Gerard Butler's new movie", you can tell almost immediately exactly the kind of movie you're going to be getting.
Especially in the last decade or so, but a Gerry Movie is particular brand of entertaining, as the scripts he's deciding to work with all feel like they might have been written by the same person.
Let us take a look at the synopsises to each of the movies on his upcoming CV:
Afterburn - "A group of post-apocalyptic treasure hunters (including Butler) search for ancient relics on Earth that has been nearly half-destroyed by a massive solar flare."
The Plane - "A pilot (Butler) finds himself caught in a war zone after he's forced to land his commercial aircraft during a terrible storm."
Remote Control - "A British corporate intelligence (Butler) analyst finds himself tangled up in a a conspiracy to destabilise the Chinese economy."
Chase - "Will Spann (Butler) is driving his soon-to-be ex-wife Lisa (Jaimie Alexander) to her parents' home when she mysteriously disappears without a trace during a stop at a gas station. A frantic Will engages the local police and Lisa's parents in a desperate attempt to find her, but as time passes and suspicion falls on him, he must take matters into his own hands, delving into the town's criminal underbelly while running from the authorities in a race against time to find Lisa."
We're not gonna lie, we want to watch each and every one of these right now, please and thank you.
We recently caught up with Butler in the run-up to his new movie Copshop, and you can check out that interview in full right here:
But now, on with the science and finding Butler's most-fun movie to date. (Note: we didn't include Copshop because it is too new, but we may come back to this list in a few months time and update it!)
The science part of finding Peak Butler Fun does have some rules, including:
No rom-coms: sorry to all of you fans of The Ugly Truth, P.S. I Love You or Playing For Keeps, but these aren't the kind of movies we're talking about for this list.
No "serious" movies: which means we have to dump some genuinely good movies like RocknRolla, Coriolanus and The Vanishing, as well as some other not-so-good films like Machine Gun Preacher, Chasing Mavericks and The Phantom of the Opera.
No supporting roles: Butler has to be one of the leads in the movie, so we have to get rid of Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Reign of Fire, (sadly) How To Train Your Dragon and (even more sadly) Gods of Egypt.
We've also taken into some consideration the critical reactions to the remaining movies on the list, but mostly it just comes down to whatever we felt was the most fun when we were watching it. X + Y = Rory Says So.
Ready? Okay, on with the list, from least-to-most fun, starting with...
11. Law Abiding Citizen
Gerard Butler as a criminal mastermind who decides to get revenge on the people who killed his family while (seemingly) locked up in prison sounds great... on paper. In reality, the twists (and we never thought we'd say this about a Gerry movie) were TOO MUCH. There is a certain balancing act of ridiculousness that Butler's movies manage to stay on, but this one fell hard. From a height.
10. Greenland
Butler in an asteroid movie. Perfect. What could go wrong? Well... unlike Armageddon, this movie has no concern about being entertainment. Instead, it gives a realistic(ish) portrayal of how the world would react to an apocalyptic situation. It was more depressing than fun, to be honest. Still a good movie, though.
And there's a sequel in the works!
9. 300
Okay, everyone just calm down. CALM DOWN! We're not saying this movie is bad at all; the violent, super-ab'd retelling of an ancient battle is beautiful to look at, and Butler and his mostly nekkid warriors give it their all. But the movie is essentially a conveyor belt of same'y action scenes, going slooooow then FAST then slooooow again. Plus it has a bit of a bummer ending, tbh.
8. Gamer
A Gerry movie directed by the guys behind Crank? Bring it on! Basically the same plot as recent Ryan Reynolds vehicle Free Guy, but with the violent levels turned up to eleven, this has moments of absolute madness, but the amount you'll actually enjoy this will almost certainly have a direct relation to how much alcohol is currently in your system.
5-7. Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen
What if the Nakatomi Plaza from Die Hard was actually the White House? That was the question that the first in the Has Fallen trilogy asked (as did White House Down, just three months later). London took the Die Hard With A Vengeance story path and spread it across the city, but it was crap. Angel was basically The Fugitive with more explosions. All three a lot of fun, truth be told.
And there is another one on the way, tentatively titled Night Has Fallen.
4. Dracula 2000
Did you know there was a movie where Gerard Butler plays Dracula? Not just a vampire, but actually Dracula. It is TERRIBLE, but in a way that Showgirls and Burlesque and Troll 2 are terrible, in that they wrap all the way around the Tropic Of Terrible and wind up back on the other side, becoming that unique type of entertaining. Although we're betting Butler and everyone else involved is secretly hoping we've all forgotten this existed. But we haven't, Gerry. We never will.
3. Hunter Killer
Maybe the least-well-known movie on this list, Butler is a submarine commander trying to stop World War III. The cast is massively impressive, including Gary Oldman, Michael Nyqvist, Common, Linda Cardellini and Toby Stephens, and you get the feeling everyone involved thought they were making the next The Hunt For Red October or Crimson Tide. Instead, it is a very silly action thriller that just happens to be set on a submarine. It is still A LOT of fun, though.
2. Geostorm
The OTHER disaster movie on Gerry's CV sees a weather getting out of control because of a series of malfunctioning satellites. One of those "natural weather disasters" is a massive tidal wave, which in reality has nothing to do with weather, but shifting tectonic plates. It is that kind of attention of basic detail that makes Geostorm such a joyously idiotic rollercoaster to watch.
1. Den of Thieves
We almost didn't include this one, because we felt it might fall under the No "Serious" Movies category, but then we remembered how we would describe the plot of this movie: What if Heat, but dumb? Butler as a cop-on-the-edge (TM) trying to take down a group of elite bank robbers is exquisitely entertaining, striking that absolute perfect balance of fun and silly.
And, yes, there's a sequel in the works.
