Movie Review: Live Free or Die Hard
½Move over Peter Parker - you and Jack Sparrow have been outdone this time around! In the Season of the Sequel, Bruce Willis shows his repetitive cohorts how it is done - Yippie ki yay...
The 4th installment of the Die Hard series (originally started almost 20 years ago) does its level best to combine all the fights, explosions, the wit and the comedy of the first flick while adding a younger flair (sorry Bruno). Put it all together and you have the recipe for one kick ass action movie for the summer of 2007.
John McClane picks up almost where he left off as an NYPD cop who always seems to be the only guy who can stand up to a band of terrorists. This time around, we have the old school cop up against the new age of computers and hackers. As the bad guy says, "you’re a Timex watch in a digital age, John."
Our villain, Thomas Gabriel is played quite convincingly by Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood). Gabriel and his merry band of hacker-terrorists have figured out how to pull off a "Fire Sale" - basically a systematic shutdown of all the United States using our computer dependency against us. What's their motivation..what's their trauma? Who cares? Honestly the reasons why are a bit hokey, but the age-old battle of 1 vs. 100 in order to save the world is a recipe that is still working for Mr. Willis.
What would a Die Hard movie be without a non-cop character for McClane to protect? This time around, Justin Long (none other than Mac, himself) plays the computer-savvy sidekick who inadvertently gives the terrorists some program to help them implement their nefarious plans. He brought in humor, an air of innocence and someone you really wanted to root for in this movie. The casting could have used some work for the smaller roles, but putting Bruce together with Long was the work of a genius. I will say that giving Kevin Smith a small part as a Hacker who lives in his mother’s basement seems somehow fitting, Boba Fett standee and all.
The beauty of this movie is its ability to bring back the heyday of the big, blockbuster action films from the 80's. Where else can you get cars being flung at helicopters because the cop ran out of bullets and options? Not only does this movie respect its original, but they actually play homage to it in a couple of ways - there is even an Agent Johnson – but just one this time.
So for Die Hard #4 – you should be pleasantly surprised. With witty one-liners, explosions, the brutal demise of many bad guys and an evil mastermind all dispatched by John McClane…you’ll feel like you’ve come home once again.
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The Very Best of Elvis Costello
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