White House Down
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: June 28, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 43 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
19
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 27, 2013
There may be better examples of cinematic art in 2013, but for a good time at the movies, it's hard to imagine anything beating this action extravaganza, from director Roland Emmerich, about a very Obama-like president.
80
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaJun 27, 2013
White House Down aims to be a low-brow slab of mindless summer fun. Most of the time, it comes pretty close to hitting the bull’s eye. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMarsha McCreadieJun 28, 2013
White House Down is still too gun-happy, and too long, but however you feel about the Oval Office, our country, or some of the movie's jingoism, young Emily is worth rescuing. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJun 27, 2013
Only in the last half-hour do the usual Emmerich absurdities pile up: I laughed outright at the character who, past 65 and diagnosed with a massive brain tumor that will kill him within months, cannot be stopped by a ferocious beating, being stabbed in the neck with a sharp implement, then being crushed against a wall by an SUV moving at a minimum of 30 mph. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 26, 2013
While White House Down isn’t going to score points for originality, seriousness, or subtlety (Emmerich likes his political messages blunt and loud), it is a lot of fun; if nothing else, Emmerich is a great widescreen showman who knows how to stage mayhem on a grand scale. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickJun 26, 2013
You couldn’t ask for a more fun summer popcorn movie than White House Down. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJul 1, 2013
Of all the dumb megabudget "Die Hard"–like action pictures of the last few years (including that other White House Goes Boom movie, "Olympus Has Fallen"), this is both the most entertaining and the most inviting of viewers' input. Read full review
70
TimeMary PolsJun 27, 2013
What makes White House Down not just tolerable but frivolously entertaining is its slapstick soul; a scene where the presidential limousine does doughnuts on the South Lawn plays like an homage to the Keystone Kops. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 26, 2013
White House Down is a hoot and a half, a shameless popcorn entertainment that is preposterous and diverting in just about equal measure. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJun 25, 2013
An action thriller that doesn’t know when to quit. For the most part, though, it remains preposterously entertaining. Read full review
70
VarietyScott FoundasJun 25, 2013
Itself owing much to such lone-man-of-action hallmarks as “Die Hard” and “Speed,” this welcome throwback to an earlier, more generously entertaining era of summer blockbusters delivers a wide array of close-quarters combat and large-scale destruction, all grounded in an immensely appealing star turn by Channing Tatum and ace support from imperiled POTUS Jamie Foxx. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJun 26, 2013
White House Down is amply endowed with enough tension, humor, and calamitous action to ensure it a solid berth in the summer box-office sweepstakes. Channing Tatum comes into his own as a leading man in this picture, proving himself as a beefy yet agile action star and not just the pure beefcake of "Magic Mike." Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 26, 2013
Skip it, and you'll be depriving yourself of one of the summer's most satisfyingly stupid pleasures. Read full review
65
Film.comWilliam GossJun 26, 2013
At best, White House Down is a sure-fire way to kill two hours, if not countless brain cells. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 27, 2013
A buddy comedy disguised as a political thriller. It’s full of malarkey, but as a campaign of shock and awe, it’s hard to resist. Read full review
63
Boston GlobePeter KeoughJun 27, 2013
Intentionally or not, Roland Emmerich’s White House Down is the comedy hit of the summer. No other film equals its comic sophistication. Each nutty scenario is surpassed by the next, ludicrous story lines coalesce with expert orchestration, and absurd details return with perfect timing to build to a crescendo of hilarity. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJun 26, 2013
While director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) piles on outlandish scenarios, the chemistry of the lead actors mitigates the contrived setup and numbing explosions. Read full review
60
The GuardianMark KermodeSep 15, 2013
This bona-fide big-budget Hollywood flop at least has the good grace to laugh at itself as it rolls out the dingbat-daft action-movie cliches. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonSep 10, 2013
The outcome may be pre-ordained, but Emmerich’s knack for a witty pop-culture reference, a pulse-pounding gun battle or a sneaky political undercurrent (the film has drawn fire in the US for being leftie propaganda) hasn’t deserted him. Read full review
60
EmpireNick de SemlyenSep 9, 2013
Lincoln meets Sudden Death: a corny but raucous throwback to when Planet Hollywood was hip. Gary Busey popping out of a rose bush wouldn’t feel out of place. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithSep 2, 2013
Longer than OHF and just as daft, WHD makes for a more entertaining watch before succumbing to the same bombastic overkill. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensJun 28, 2013
Even as the story accrues preposterousness, the action moves along crisply, and Tatum and Foxx hit a nice buddy-movie vibe. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 28, 2013
This is solidly a genre picture, and one that follows all the necessary conventions -- but it's also one that does it all very well. That means lots of big, dumb and loud action -- but it also means good, popcorny, summer fun. Read full review
60
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 27, 2013
This piece of midsummer madness is undeniably silly and delusional, a dire political fable told as tongue-in-cheek pastiche. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 27, 2013
As demented and entertaining as promised, and a little less idiotic than feared. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlJun 25, 2013
Often, the hilarity is indisputably intentional. If you think you'll laugh and clap, try it; if you know you'll hate it, you're right. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 28, 2013
Tatum muscles his way through the role with panache, while Foxx never gets a chance to break loose. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 27, 2013
White House Down is nearly enough fun to be a bad movie that's a good time. But it always finds some way of being a drag, belching exposition and weak humor when action's all we need, then carrying the action to exhausting lengths. Read full review
50
The DissolveNathan RabinJul 11, 2013
White House Down is never more than a sliver away from gleeful self-parody. It’s pure patriotic kitsch, the cinematic equivalent of a black-velvet painting of a bald eagle clutching an American flag in its talons as it soars majestically over Mount Rushmore. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandJul 1, 2013
The main flaw of White House Down is that it overstays its welcome, thanks in large part to a silly climax that seems to unfold in three laborious acts. At least, Tatum keeps his shirt off. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJun 28, 2013
It's probably not a good idea to examine the political content of a film in which the leader of the free world proves that the pen is mightier than the sword by stabbing someone in the neck with one. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 28, 2013
This sloppy mess also pales in comparison to the better-paced, taut "Olympus Has Fallen," which represents 2013's better White House invasion story. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJun 27, 2013
Formula action films don’t come much more formulaic that this. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleJun 27, 2013
This is getting old. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 26, 2013
White House Down is a corker, real competition for “Fast & Furious 6″ as the dumbest fun you’ll have at the movies this summer. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 25, 2013
Perhaps afraid that watching a symbol of liberty repeatedly go boom isn’t enough, Emmerich and screenwriter James Vanderbilt add family drama, an attack on Congress, a plane crash and the possible nuking of the Middle East. What isn’t tonally jarring ends up shatteringly inept. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 27, 2013
White House Down never quite seems to decide what kind of movie it wants to be, although by firepower alone it qualifies as this summer’s most cartoonishly bombastic exercise in sensory overload (so far). Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 27, 2013
Mr. Emmerich, who has often conjured with cosmic themes, sometimes wittily, achieves something new this time around — a level of indifference to the genre and its fans that amounts to a cosmic shrug. What does it matter if the absurdity is slovenly, the whimsy leaden, the extravagance squalid?
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 27, 2013
The poster for this movie should read: Hello, Suckers! Read full review
25
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthJun 27, 2013
White House Down wants to riff on the stirring action crowd-pleasers of old. But instead of playing on those motifs, White House Down becomes a slave to them, turning into the very kind of rote, brainless, poorly choreographed and leaden action movie it wants to lighten up. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundJun 27, 2013
Roland Emmerich makes love of country into a thing of unabashed hokum, which bleeds through every nook of this overstuffed jumble and leaves no character untouched. Read full review
20
Time OutKeith UhlichJun 26, 2013
What played as rousingly dumb fun in "Independence Day" (1996) — all those pie-eyed nationalistic monologues, and U.S. landmarks reduced to rubble — now come off as callously insensitive, even with tongue firmly in cheek. Read full review
0
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 27, 2013
[A] cartoonish, offensive, overblown, clanging, steaming piece of ... cinema. Read full review
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