Live Free Or Die Hard
The long-awaited fourth entry in the Die Hard series is like a breath of fresh air when compared to the current action fare despite some minor flaws, and while not quite acheiving the greatness of 1 and 2, is leagues better than the shitfest that was 3. The first 20 minutes are a bit shaky: the idea of McClane basically stalking his own daughter is borderline creepy, and rehashing the Armageddon bit of having his daughter call him by his first name makes the viewer’s eyes roll. Then, right about the point of the “Presidents” speech, the story kicks into high gear, with some fine action directing and innovative sequences, and thankfully McClane is not given superhuman powers this time like in Part 3. The Mac Guy Justin Long may be a fucking dork, but he’s playing a HACKER, so he fits in well with his role, unlike say, Hugh Jackman in Swordfish. Him and Willis work themselves up to a nice camaraderie that seems less forced than the teamup with Sam Jackson in Part 3. Olyphant as the villian has some HUGE shoes to fill walking in the footsteps of Rickman, Sadler, and Irons, playing the part as a young intelligent control freak who’s not too adept at killing somebody face to face. Maggie Q as his female sidekick brings a nice touch of evil sex appeal, while Winstead bristles with girl next door hotness as McClane’s daughter(and while I understand Bonnie Bedelia made her peace with the series, Holly must be a really shallow bitch to divorce a guy who risked his life multiple times to save her, and is practically a national hero), and Cliff Curtis is pretty much wasted as the inept government man in charge. Other problems include inbueing a couple of henchmen with Spiderman-like acrobatic ability (mostly bad CGI), a few of the standard action cliches trotted out (including the old “sidekick takes a bullet” bit), and a pretty sloppily done final showdown. Still, one can tell the writers really did their homework on the possiblities of such an attack, and smart dialogue and storytelling pull things thru, and of course, you can never get tired of the Bruce kicking ass and taking names…
8/10