Kurt Loder Reviews White House Down

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Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

Any movie that introduces its star in conversation with a squirrel would have to be going for comedy, you'd think. But with Roland Emmerich it's hard to be sure. The director has toyed with laughter before—with his global-warming hoot fest The Day After Tomorrow, his Stone Age lunk-a-thon 10,000 BC, and his straight-faced Mayan-apocalypse workout, 2012. But with his new movie, White House Down, Emmerich appears to be tossing all restraint aside in order to stake his claim as a laugh-master of the top rank. Either that, writes Kurt Loder, or he has delivered one of his silliest pictures to date.