Die Hard 4.0

I was a little weary, but yippee, John is back in full strength. Even more wisecracks than before, he’s full of laughs and eliminates baddies one after another. The story is, well in short, fine. Technological advances haven’t hurt John as much as I had feared (what’s more it prompted a couple more wisecracks). Olyphant is one of the best villains to Die Hard and I must say that I understood his motives. I would also be pissed if someone did to me what they did to him. And he had a nice shirt, too. Justin Long was also a pleasant surprise and he makes a pretty decent sidekick (I bet you can’t pronounce the Czech equivalent: “přicmrndávač"). Maggie Q was gorgeous, as always. And if John weren’t John, she would have won, same as the French Spiderboy Cyril Raffaelli who put on a nice show in the little room he was given. Live Free or Die Hard worked out just fine. Wiseman did some great work and you can tell that he’s a fan. Despite all of his blue filters and logical nonsense, you just have to forgive him for that. And maybe. Just maybe I would like to see a Die Hard 5.0. Hope to see you again, John. (16/08/2007)

Len Wiseman, the eclectic and soulless vampire son and John McClane? Are you kidding? No! Unless... Bruce Willis was at his best, and Len made fun of what he embodied in his two previous films - from a state-of-the-art action room. Well, miracles do happen. Live Free or Die Hard is exactly the kind of action cocktail that old lovers of the genre like to drink. Explosive, ironic, witty... charming and captivating. How so? In order: Willis is at his best, and his John could carry the film, even if the script was a level weaker. The script is not a level weaker - it is exactly as sparse as it needs to be. Wiseman was being honest and made a film without unnecessary modern buck-passing, and with enthusiasm and a clear vision. In the old way, but also very brisk. Timothy Olyphant is the ideal villain. The perfect contradiction to the bald detective - a guy who doesn't stain his hands with blood, but uses the conveniences of the modern world. A world that will become a deadly arena in which an aging detective, the last Mohican of his kind, must face modernity. He won't be able get around it, he won't dance around it with the elegance of a Kung Fu master, and he won't deceive it with hacking or supernatural abilities... he will break it with his fist, bullets, or simply the manly force we are used to from John. The NYPD detective does not want to make friends with the modern world. He makes his way from point A to point B, says one-liners just like when he was young (and later), skates through jacked and breathtaking action sequences, puts on armor made of clichés and the pathos of "good cops", which is an integral part of the 1980s. Live Free or Die Hard is a whiff of old times - honest filmmaking with a hero who is a loser (and therefore cool), with a hero who is so perfectly incompatible with all hi-tech culture that he resembles an angry Don Quixote. But unlike Cervantes, he flattens windmills to the ground, gets into an ambulance covered in blood and leaves for the Hollywood gold fund. A perfectly good film from a genre that I had thought had died out. Yippee-ki-yay, bastard! (29/06/2007)

The story is fast-paced, the action scenes are perfectly shot and sometimes even inventive (the tunnel scene), and the old boy Bruce Willis is – surprisingly – still the same great John McClane, who holds the film together and provides it with the right ironic wit. I would edit the last third of the film a bit and shorten the whole thing by some five minutes, but otherwise I have no complaints, apart from the fallen Capitol in the trailer. (26/06/2007)

On the occasion of Live Free or Die Hard, the 4th film in the series, a brief recap is necessary. In the first part, John McClane saves a group of people in a high-rise building, in the second part, several thousand people at an airport, in the third part, the inhabitants of a metropolis, and in the fourth part, the entire United States. If a hypothetical fifth part were to be made, the brave policeman would undoubtedly save the whole world. From this list, it is evident that this series fulfills all the rules for a sequel, namely a larger budget, bombast, and more action. The fourth installment is certainly not a bad film, but I dare to say that, from a cinematic point of view, it is the weakest of all four and it clearly shows the producers' calculation. It lacks the rawness of the first part, a certain perspective and self-irony, which is replaced by the work of special effects artists and pyrotechnicians. The exaggeration that has always been characteristic of the series here leads to counterproductive absurdity, as seen in McClane's victorious battle with a fighter plane. It is also evident that the work of the screenwriter is more careless, as some of the fights exude a certain B-movie quality, as seen in McClane's confrontation with Maggie Q in the power plant control room, where both opponents take care of each other and then ignore him, only to miraculously revive him shortly after, exactly in the style of clichés from poorly made films. The main villain is also less charismatic than his predecessors, especially the incomparable Alan Rickman. The film has the advantage of Bruce Willis's excellent performance, who shows almost no signs of aging. Fans of the alternative scene will be pleased with the small role of Kevin Smith, who in my opinion should seriously consider going on a diet... Overall impression: 70%. (01/09/2007)

"Yippie-ki-yay, motherfu..." A solid action picture? You bet it is. But isn’t it a little too little, in view of the quality that the previous parts had to offer? Not really, no... One year short of the twentieth anniversary of the release of Die Hard, we get part four. And although, in order to get a lower rating, John McClane has gone a little soft, due to his age he wears a hoody instead of an undershirt and in the action scenes he gets a lot of help from the editor, he continues successfully to reel out great lines, shoot, bleed, get a good kicking and flatten everybody like a road-roller in the end. It’s surprising that Len Wiseman, who until now hasn’t manged to film even a mediocre movie, has pulled himself together at last. It’s true, that it’s a bit creaky in places, the screenplay is dumb (especially on the technical side), the end way over the top and camera filters just everywhere... But somewhere deep down under everything you can clearly feel the spirit of the good old Die Hards. It all rattles along nicely, action making way for more action, not many dead moments, John’s little helper doesn’t matter at all (quite the opposite), the action sequences are mostly inventive and the baddies are excellent. Especially the charismatic and nicely flaunty Maggie Q. What more could you want from a summer action blockbuster that turn off your brain and let yourself get sucked in by the return of one of the action legends of the silver screen? Even all these years later this series has managed to maintain its high standard in terms of quality, but it is dragged back from the very top rung by a sequence lasting less than ten minutes with John in a semi truck on a freeway intersection versus a fighter jet. Something that looks like an upgraded version of a notoriously ridiculous scene from the B-grade Rambo III look even worse in the middle of this A-grade action movie. On the other hand, the very end of the movie is very satisfying when the main villain performed nicely by Timothy Olyphant goes out in style. Many of us were hoping, few of us really believed it would happen, but it did. This isn’t the best of the Die Hards - it’s the worst, but it’s still above-average good, although it turned John into precisely what made him different from all the other action heroes. We can at least be pleased for that. If for no other reason then because we aren’t often treated to good old eighties-nineties style action pictures very often any more. If things carry on as they have been, we’ll be getting part twelve in a couple of years’ time. (28/06/2007)