About 40 minutes into Live Free or Die Hard (the fourth film in the popular Die Hard series), Bruce Willis stops playing tough cop John McClane and becomes his indestructible character from M. Night Shyalaman's Unbreakable. It's the only answer that makes sense.
How else could he jump from a speeding car onto blacktop and live to tell the tale? Or fall several stories out of a window, only to get up, dust himself off and continue fighting? Or crash a vehicle through solid walls and into a lift shaft without killing himself? Or leap from a wrecked juggernaut, onto the tail of a soon-to-explode jet plane, and then onto a collapsed freeway (I'm not making this uphonest!) without being reduced to a red smear? In the first Die Hard, McClane was vulnerable; in this one, he wouldn't look out of place wearing a fancy spandex costume with a fluttering cape.
Part 4 sees our grizzled hero back in action after he is sent to pick up Matthew Farrell, a computer hacker who is suspected of being involved with a high-tech terrorist organisation (who are attempting to shut down the U.S.A. in order to get their grubby paws on it's entire wealth). However, it transpires that the young geek was duped into helping the bad-guys and is now surplus to requirements; the villains try to kill the net-nerd (I know, I know... look who's talking!) to cover their tracks, but they don't count on the hero of the Nakatomi Tower incident being on bodyguard duty.
McClane rescues Matthew (after engaging in an exciting shootout with some nameless henchmen, who all dienatch!) and takes off in his car, with a helicopter full of gun-toting baddies in hot pursuit. Eventually, trapped in a tunnel, having narrowly escaped death in a multiple pile-up, John McClane makes his transformation into a superhero. Now, impervious to damage, he gets in his car, hurtles at high speed down the tunnel and launches the vehicle into the waiting helicopter, leaping to safety at the last moment.
And so it continues, with each successive action set-piece more ridiculous than the one before, until the aforementioned freeway/fighter jet scene which takes my award for daftest cinematic moment of this millennium.
Unfortunately, the silliness doesn't stop with the action scenes... the characters that populate this film are equally ill-conceived: Luscious Maggie Q plays Mai Lihn, a kung fu fighting villainess who is almost as indestructible as Willis''s cop; Long's cyber-dork is one of those people that only seem to exist in modern day action/thrillersa twenty something with the ability to outsmart the government's top computer operatives; tasty Mary Elizabeth Winstead is John's ballsy daughter Lucy, who goes from hating her dad to loving him (when he rescues her from danger); and Timothy Olyphant is the supreme bad-guy, a miffed ex-government computer boffin who (inexplicably) manages to gather together a team of henchmen willing to do his bidding, whatever the risks.
Live Free or Die Hard is glossy, popcorn entertainment for those who don't worry too much about logic. It's entertaining fluff that is technically flawless, easy to follow and reasonably exciting, and, for many, that will be enough. But for those who, nearly twenty years ago, thrilled at the sight of a vest-wearing Willis dangling over the edge of a skyscraper, it can only be something of a disappointment.
How else could he jump from a speeding car onto blacktop and live to tell the tale? Or fall several stories out of a window, only to get up, dust himself off and continue fighting? Or crash a vehicle through solid walls and into a lift shaft without killing himself? Or leap from a wrecked juggernaut, onto the tail of a soon-to-explode jet plane, and then onto a collapsed freeway (I'm not making this uphonest!) without being reduced to a red smear? In the first Die Hard, McClane was vulnerable; in this one, he wouldn't look out of place wearing a fancy spandex costume with a fluttering cape.
Part 4 sees our grizzled hero back in action after he is sent to pick up Matthew Farrell, a computer hacker who is suspected of being involved with a high-tech terrorist organisation (who are attempting to shut down the U.S.A. in order to get their grubby paws on it's entire wealth). However, it transpires that the young geek was duped into helping the bad-guys and is now surplus to requirements; the villains try to kill the net-nerd (I know, I know... look who's talking!) to cover their tracks, but they don't count on the hero of the Nakatomi Tower incident being on bodyguard duty.
McClane rescues Matthew (after engaging in an exciting shootout with some nameless henchmen, who all dienatch!) and takes off in his car, with a helicopter full of gun-toting baddies in hot pursuit. Eventually, trapped in a tunnel, having narrowly escaped death in a multiple pile-up, John McClane makes his transformation into a superhero. Now, impervious to damage, he gets in his car, hurtles at high speed down the tunnel and launches the vehicle into the waiting helicopter, leaping to safety at the last moment.
And so it continues, with each successive action set-piece more ridiculous than the one before, until the aforementioned freeway/fighter jet scene which takes my award for daftest cinematic moment of this millennium.
Unfortunately, the silliness doesn't stop with the action scenes... the characters that populate this film are equally ill-conceived: Luscious Maggie Q plays Mai Lihn, a kung fu fighting villainess who is almost as indestructible as Willis''s cop; Long's cyber-dork is one of those people that only seem to exist in modern day action/thrillersa twenty something with the ability to outsmart the government's top computer operatives; tasty Mary Elizabeth Winstead is John's ballsy daughter Lucy, who goes from hating her dad to loving him (when he rescues her from danger); and Timothy Olyphant is the supreme bad-guy, a miffed ex-government computer boffin who (inexplicably) manages to gather together a team of henchmen willing to do his bidding, whatever the risks.
Live Free or Die Hard is glossy, popcorn entertainment for those who don't worry too much about logic. It's entertaining fluff that is technically flawless, easy to follow and reasonably exciting, and, for many, that will be enough. But for those who, nearly twenty years ago, thrilled at the sight of a vest-wearing Willis dangling over the edge of a skyscraper, it can only be something of a disappointment.