Now this is what summer movies are all about for me and further proof that the 80’s have come back to haunt us! Live Free or Die Hard will not de-mystify the universe, nor will it make you think deep thoughts about your life or forever change your perspective, your paradigm or anything like that. In fact, you are better off shutting off your brain and enjoying the ride. Do you often complain movies are unrealistic? Don’t go. Do you feel that movies need to have a cohesive plot and tons of character exposition? Don’t go. Do you have a deep seated and possibly uncomfortable love for John McClane wherein you love watching him blow up, fight bad guys, and survive impossible odds… GO! GO NOW!
John McClane is one of my favorite superheros. I have a Joey and Chandler level love for the original and enjoy the heck out of the sequels (with 2 being my least favorite). Live Free is better than 2, but the original and WAV surpass it in a few ways. There are a few question that need to be asked when rating a Die Hard film:
How was the villain:
Timothy Olyphant (his name always makes me think of Lord of the Rings) is OK. If anything it’s just really fun watching John piss him off. He isn’t as well developed as some of the other villains and certainly doesn’t come off as cunning and clever like the previous baddies. He comes across more as an obsessive crazy person who also happens to be able to hack computers like nobody’s business. He kills his own people or has them killed, he has no compunction about making people dead to make his point but other than that he is just kind of there for McClane to kill. Still I thought he was fun to watch and seeing the rage build on his face when he gets lipped off is awesome.
The other big factor with the villain in these movies is how they die. The original started that crazy trend of having the villain die in an absurd way and then the hero will have a smartass quip (I guess technically Bond started this but DH made it mainstream.). Not to disappoint and this isn’t really a spoiler, you know that is the point of these movies, the dude’s death is total weak sauce and a big letdown after a huge build-up. That’s just me I think but I liked the others better.
How were the one liners:
This movie got a lot of crap from the fans before it even hit the theatre. Why? It was rated PG-13. This means less bloody and not as much swearing, which causes a real issue with the lead character’s trademark phrase and it terms of the overall level of mayhem. Swearing is neither here nor there for me. The only time I feel I really notice it is when it is completely out of place and seems to have been added simply to make it seem more mature. In the Die Hard’s it made sense a lot of the time. I would be swearing a lot too if terrorists were seemingly always trying to kill me. I would also have severe self-esteem issues and wonder what I had done to deserve this. The one-liners themselves were great in this movie, it didn’t need the swearing. There were a couple I kind of groaned at, but the rest were awesome. There were even a couple of great nods to the original, “My name is Agent Johnson.” McClane replies, “Johnson?” and if you know these movies you know why that is funny. I laughed out loud during one fight sequence when McClane is fighting a guy with Parkour like reflexes. Top notch flick for one liners.
How was the action:
This is what makes McClane a superhero. Here he is channeling his character from Unbreakable, and indestructible man who can survive the most harrowing of disasters. If McClane were truly human he would have died several times over in this flick. But John McClane is not human, never has been. No, John McClane is a hero, not a human. He can jump out of a car moving 60 mph and survive with a scrape or two, he can jump from a truck to a jet to a giant piece of concrete and slide down unharmed. I was having a conversation with someone about this and I summed it up this way, “In the first film and the others McClane surviving in terms of real life was very unlikely, in this movie it’s just plain impossible.” And that really is the difference in this one. A couple times I found myself going WHAT!?! Ya right before remembering what I was watching.
This was a good, fun summer movie. Check your brain at the door and enjoy yourself. It is accessible for pretty much everyone and appeals especially to guys in that watching things blow up kind of way. It is my second favorite movie of the summer so far, the first being Transformers which I will also review this week. The rest for me have either fallen flat or have been just plain forgettable. For me, this is what summer movies are about.
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