Paris Has Fallen drops all eight of its episodes at once on Hulu, after initial premieres in France and the UK. Remember Olympus Has Fallen, where Mike Banning, Gerard Butler’s faultless Secret Service guy, became the lone hero who saved the day? As Olympus led to London Has Fallen and everything got more and more ridiculous, that film series also earned a towering pile of money. Which is how we got to the “Has Fallen universe” and Paris Has Fallen, a Butler-less small screen spinoff (he’s among the producers), where Tewfik Jallab and Ritu Arya take over to try and rain on the parade of another violent terrorist mastermind. Will they save the City of Light? Maybe. Will there be lots of familiar spy show and action-thriller elements along the way, punctuated with the usual implausibilities imported from the Has Fallen films? Definitely. Sean Harris, Ana Ularu, Emmanuelle Bercot, and Laurent Lucas also star.
Opening Shot: There is a mime preparing his makeup in the mirror, alongside other performers. But his features aren’t the only thing this guy is hiding.
The Gist: The Has Fallen Universe (The HFU?) is always about messing with those dignitaries. In Paris, there’s a big party at the British Embassy, which the French defense minister attends along with Vincent Taleb (Jallab), his head of security. Zara Taylor (Arya) is also in the room – she works at the embassy in “Human Resources,” aka she’s actually an agent for MI6 – and soon enough the party’s rolling, with that mime from earlier and his costumed pals making a big show of cooperative French-British relations. But the performers, the waiters, the kitchen staff, and probably the even the planters and dinner plates and champagne bottles are actually terrorists, and despite heavy security at the party – again, this is supposed to be happening in a foreign embassy – Jacob Pearce (Harris) and his henchpeople knock the place over in like 30 seconds.
Pearce, as you’d imagine, has a bone to pick with the defense minister, the MI6 station chief, the French and British governments – well, he actually has lots of bones to pick, most of which have a lot to do with how he was scarred by fire and torture across most of his upper body. While the former French Foreign Legion soldier’s embassy takeover is eventually thwarted, thanks mostly to the impromptu team of Zara and Vincent, the incident reveals how secrets spread in government circles – Pearce’s rogue status was not unknown to the military and top spy agencies – and becomes the opening act in the fanatic and his minions’ meticulously-planned, citywide revenge tour.
The team-up at the center of Paris Has Fallen has a decent amount of potential. Tewfik Jallab (Blood Coast) and Ritu Arya – Arya was fantastic as Lila Pitts in The Umbrella Academy, even if fans weren’t feeling Five and Lila’s age-gap romance – are already forming a wary bond, as Vincent and Zara look to trust each other inside the growing chaos of Pearce’s attack. Just like Mike Banning, it’ll be up to them to save all of Paris and the people they care about, because in the tradition of the Has Fallen films, everybody else who is supposed to be prepared for these things is either completely worthless or totally corrupt, and the bad guy’s holding all the cards.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of: Wait! Paris has fallen? Did anybody check on Emily?! Obviously you could pick from a lot of shows where the French capital is a character. But with its spies and bad guys, alphabet soup government security agencies, and cat-and-mouse chases through scenic European cities, Paris Has Fallen joins The Day of the Jackal and The Agency as recent versions of this kind of thing. (You could even throw Citadel: Diana onto this list, and you should, because that show is awesome.) But Paris Has Fallen also exists as the first small screen version of what the Has Fallen films wrought. The last one, 2019’s Angel has Fallen, was mostly running on fumes. But it cost $50 mil and made three times that. Hence: franchise.
Our Take: Paris Has Fallen has the requisite pieces in place. Ritu Arya is cool and confident as MI6’s Zara Taylor, Tewfik Jallab is brave and determined as Vincent Taleb, and Sean Harris plays Jacob Pearce with an intriguing air of wounded menace. (We’re also interested in learning more about the powerful hold Pearce has over his people, like Ana Ularu as a former special operations soldier radicalized to his cause.) So why do the familiar parts of Paris Has Fallen not fit better together? A big reason is the same reason that befell Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen: no matter how successful they were, in time, those movies couldn’t outrun the silliness of their premise. There are lots of tactical guys in vests with guns in Paris, lots of the usual crisply-delivered commands. “I want snipers on that rooftop!” – that sort of thing. And some of the fight choreography and gunplay has promise. But Paris Has Fallen ultimately might have to rely on the individual performances of Arya, Jallab, and Harris to carry it for an entire eight episodes, because a lot of the stuff swirling around them feels so familiar as to be generic.
Sex and Skin: Seemingly none. We do meet someone who seems to be Zara’s love interest, but the moment is barely explained. Meanwhile, Vincent has a secret relationship of his own.
Parting Shot: French Foreign Legion officer-turned-evil genius Jacob Pearce stares at the Paris skyline with so much silent fury, it’s like he’s trying to detonate bombs with his rage.
Sleeper Star: Sean Harris does villainous intensity very, very well. As Solomon Lane from Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Fallout, and here in Paris Has Fallen as Pearce, whose scars have turned him into a walking, talking vendetta.
Most Pilot-y Line: “For someone in HR, you know a lot about special forces tattoos.” Mesdames et messieurs, we’ve got banter! There’s a competitive, nicely watchable edge to their exchanges, once Vincent and Zara are thrown together in the aftermath of Pearce’s attack.
Our Call: Stream It, but the jury’s out on how many episodes Paris Has Fallen can sustain the relative juice imported from the Has Fallen movies. If there is a core HFU fanbase rising up for this small screen continuance, that contingent should be happy. But as action-thriller stuff goes, Paris Has Fallen in general feels kinda basic.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.