Live Free or Die Hard Review
“Yippy kay yay Mother-PG-13″
The Die Hard movies are single handledly some of the best action movies you’ll ever see. The first one is about as classic as you can get as far as charismatic characters, cool premise and badass action. Bruce Willis doing John McClane lends itself so easily to the action genre that it’s almost unfair. He is, in my flawed opinion, the best action movie character of the past 20 years. When the concept of dragging this franchise into a 4th volume came about, it really didn’t bug me. Willis is still in good shape and the character can still work. He’s like this crazy James Bond type character that can pretty much go on until his age deems it purposeless. That being said, Live Free or Die Hard was pretty much what one could expect from a Die Hard movie, except without the swears and attitude.
The script moves from action beat to action beat with rising tension and crazier situations. What worked in the best two Die Hard’s, being the first and Die Hard with a Vengeance, was that the action and craziness each moved together well, with each moment contributing to a future moment. Now that isn’t to say that the action scenes weren’t connected, but the way they were connected were very flimsy. Nevertheless, much like many summer blockbusters, it’s less about story and more about spectacle, and at least with this one we get a loveable character. But what makes John McClanes “big- dick-swinging, punch-first-ask-questions-later” attitude alluring, is that he is a blue collar hero. There is an interesting moment in the film where him and Justin Long talk about his values as a hero, and it seems that this dialogue is best suited in another film. We don’t want to know why McClane chooses to be the thorn in the enemies side, but simply that he is hillarious and suited for it. There isn’t one particular quality about him as a hero, but more him as a character. This is what makes Die Hard so amusing; a nouveau cowboy beating up baddies because he’s just that stubborn and angry.
The effects were cool and the spectacle was what you could expect, but overall this film felt watered down and like it was castrated. That isn’t to say that the F-Word needs to be dropped every two seconds or that exploding heads need to be viewed, but give us what the films before had given: balls to the walls, no holds bar. Die Hard was an action series with an attitude; grisly, crazy situations with a protagonist who really didn’t want to be there. The ending was bleh, and the driving point of McClanes daughter is more to drive home a point of revenge. It’s fun; it’s funny and cool, but hardly lives up to it’s predecessors, barring maybe Die Hard 2. For a film series chock full of grit and bad ass, this is the puppy of the kennel. This film get’s a 7 out of 10 Bones, for being fun, but not good enough.
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