Die Hard 4

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Directed by: Len Wiseman
Written by: Mark Bomback, based on A Farewell to Arms by John Carlin
Starring: Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cliff Curtis, Jonathan Sadowski, Andrew Friedman, Kevin Smith, Yorgo Constantine

Fourth Die Hard movie to date (oh God, please, no more), some people like to call Die Hard 4.0. Is there a Die Hard 4.2? 4.7? 4.8901? That I'd like to see.

Anyway, this time terrorists disable the internet or something and generally fuck things up for everybody. I dunno, they take down the cell phone lines or something (do cell phones have lines?). Those monsters. Oh yeah, and they take John McLane's daughter hostage. Cos they've already kidnapped his wife twice, so that's getting kinda old.

Why do they do this? For the good of America, apparently. So yeah, Bruce Willis turns superhero (?) and stops them, blowing up as many cars, helicopters, bridges, trucks and Foreign people (like, a couple of French mercenaries and Maggie Q) as they can fit into a mere 130 minutes. 130 minutes? Holy shit, that's like, two hours. No wonder.

So that was pretty boring. I used to like action movies but... they're starting to tire me. Darn.

But let us reminisce about the first Die Hard for a moment. In the first one, it was just a bunch of German (were they German? Or Russian? Gruber. German) thieves holding a skyscraper hostage while they robbed the safe.

It was quiet, it was thrilling. Bruce Willis crawling around in the ventilation system with that wife beater and no shoes. Sexy. Alan Rickman. Sexier.

This one is just nonstop action from beginning to end. There's nothing thrilling about it. There's no sense of danger, you know Bruce is going to save the day, trash the bad guys, save his daughter and say 'Yippy-kay-yay motherfucker' at least once.

And that's exactly what does happen. Anyway, two more problems which must be addressed:

Bruce Willis is no longer remotely attractive. Okay, he is, a little bit, deep down somewhere, but his head is slowly merging with his body. Ew. And he's really old. I'm sorry. Okay, Bruce Willis is only fifty-two, but the kind of shit he's doing in this movie should kill him. Really. Jumping off a plane onto solid concrete and running away without any broken legs or anything is just annoying.

Also, the series hasn't had a cool villain since Hans Gruber. No argument. He's pretty much the epitome of cool villains and they haven't been able to match him yet (let's hope they stop here).

Anyway, on the up side, I did like Justin Long, who plays the Mac in all those Apple commercials (you know, "Hi, I'm a Mac" "And I'm a PC!" "Shut up dumbass"). I vaguely remember seeing him in Dodgeball and Jeepers Creepers. He's good, and kinda cute in a Keanu Reeves kind of way. He has a nerdy charm.

Yeah, so, Die Hardererer... possibly better than Die Harderer, actually, yeah, it is better, but still kinda... stupid. And so fucking patriotic. Some funny stuff, occasional amusing dialog, but not that worth it.

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