Post by slapshot63 on Jun 29, 2007 10:06:00 GMT -5
“Finally we're back with John McClane. Now we got a choice, and the choice is plain: We can live free or we can die hard, As hard as we can. From taking on a terrorist he's never met, To taking on an F-35 jet, With the greatest car explosions by far... This sure looks sweet, man! And we know what the basic gist is: There ain't no Allen, and it's not Christmas. We don't know but we're pretty sure that John McClane kicks ass!”
Those are some of the lyrics of the song “Die Hard” by Guyz Nite. That is the part of the song that talks about Live Free or Die Hard. And while it’s pretty vague (these guys are only going by what they’ve seen in the trailers), it’s also pretty spot on. This movie had a lot to live up to. It had 12 years of growing expectations from the rabid Die Hard fans, constant rumors and hopes of it going into production only to be shattered. Fans were getting shafted with this movie. But here we are in 2007 and the movie in now in theaters. How does it measure up to the high expectations?
Let me start off by saying that I’m a bad person. I hadn’t seen any of the Die Hard films until about a week ago. I had finally finished watching Die Hard 2 and 3 one day last week so I was a noob to this series. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t love these films like the other fans though. Die Hard is probably my favorite action movie of all time and I greatly enjoyed the two sequels, even if they didn’t live up to the original. So you can imagine I was greatly excited to see Live Free or Die Hard (referred to from here on out as LFoDH). So I guess the new question I pose it, did the movie live up to my expectations?
It did with a resounding yes. LFoDH is a walloping action flick with a silly title, lots of smarmy tough-guy jokes, and a series of outrageously improbable stunt sequences--exactly what you want in a Die Hard movie, in other words. I think Congratulations are in order to the filmmakers for making such a dull-sounding crisis into something genuinely exciting. The bad guy is Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), a well-groomed, clean-cut man whose motives, at least for the first two-thirds of the film, are not entirely clear. He has a team of hackers, henchmen, and assassins to aid him in his quest for whatever-he's-doing, and he executes his plans with ruthless efficiency.
The film is mostly a series of action scenes, punctuated here and there by scenes in which Matt uses his mad computer skillz to thwart evildoers. McClane's world of fighting and killing and shooting and driving cars backwards at high speeds and launching SUVs into elevator shafts is completely foreign to Matt, while Matt's connection to the brave new world of technology and cyber-terrorism is baffling to McClane. In the 21st century, you can't save the day with guns alone. Now you need guns and a DSL connection.
Wiseman's direction is the big surprise here, though. He succeeds against all odds, an MTV-generation, heavily stylistic director hired to helm a Die Hard film? It's a ridiculous idea, but surprise, surprise, he creates the exact same attitude and feel of the last three films and plays it straight, no stylized, "Transporter"-like violence or stunts here. It's about damn time we got some real (and damn good) stunt-work in a modern day action flick. The only bit that is obviously CGI is a scene involving a jet which admittedly does go on a bit too long, but it's not a bad scene and doesn't take away from the film's quality.
Then there's the rating. It's PG-13, which means there's no end to the violence, but we hardly see any blood or corpses. So, you know, it's OK for kids, as long as their Parents Are Strongly Cautioned. They clearly had an R rating in mind when they shot the film, though, because there are many instances where the words you hear do not match what the actors lips would indicate. There are several more places where they've intentionally used shots where we can't see the actors' mouths at all, apparently to hide the fact that their dialogue was dubbed in later. It doesn't diminish the film's entertainment value, but it does mean it loses some technical points. Plus, it's a glaring reminder that movies like this, as fun as they are, aren't made JUST for fun. They're commercial properties, too. Even though the amount of F-Bombs was toned down to…zero in this movie, it didn’t really matter. Although the language was a big part of the previous movies, people don’t really remember that (except from some select lines that are said of course), they remember the action and this delivers in spades. The action is brutal, violent and bloody and you forget you’re watching a PG-13 movie. It feels “R”, it just isn’t.
Overall, Live Free or Die Hard is a very worthy entry into this beloved series. It isn’t perfect and one has to imagine how much better it would’ve been if it were rated “R”, but in its current watered down PG-13 form, it’s still a great movie that delivers on everything it promised and everything we expect from a Die Hard film. This one isn’t better than the original, but it’s easily the best sequel of the bunch. Once Willis delivers the franchise's immortal catchphrase, it is confirmed beyond any doubt that John McClane is the best action hero of all time, and it was worth waiting twelve years for his return. Yippie-Ki-Yay Motherfucker indeed.
4/5
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