Live Free or Die Hard

So I saw another sequel last night this time-- Die Hard. This is the fourth in the series and I personally think it should be the last. Now it wasn't a bad movie, it had its points and it was very fun. It was great seeing Bruce Willis push himself to be the hero we all know and love, but in the end this really wasn't a Die Hard movie.McClane (Bruce Willis) is tasked to bring a computer hacker to the F.B.I in Washington for questioning. The hacker, Matt Farrell (Justin Long), is a target from a group of psycho’s hell bent on creating electronic chaos in the U.S. Unfortunately for the psychos they picked the wrong day to try and kill the kid. The action starts out strong as McClane does his job but as it goes on the action sequences get more and more Looney Toonish. Now don't get me wrong I thought that the story was intriguing. You have a group of hard core computer hackers enacting what is called a Fire Sale on the infrastructure of the United States. They screw with the power; they screw with the stock market, etc. etc.Anyway, I liked the idea of an old-school cop taking on a techno-terrorist. That being said it would have been nicer to have a director that truly understood this series and the type of action we expect. This might sound a little anal but I just thought that the action was too smooth and clean. There was no grit in most of the sequences, no blood and sweat. It was slick with McClane leaping on stealth fighters and avoiding the domino effect of a collapsing freeway. It was all just too much. Not to mention some really bad inconsistencies with the plot. Supposedly the power was out everywhere and the satellites had been taken over or dismantled. Yet somehow the satellite operated On-Star system worked perfectly. There was also a sequence where one of the bad guys is taken out by an SUV and rammed through at least 6 walls and an elevator door yet somehow this same villain was still able to jump, kick and punch John McClane. Someone needed to explain to director Len Wiseman that he was working on Die Hard not Tom and Jerry.I really liked Justin Long as the hacker side kick. He wasn't annoying or obnoxious and he was very funny and entertaining and really became a high note to this very so-so action film. The daughter was cute and funny, and Maggie Q was hot and kicked ass. I really like Timothy Olyphant, especially as the heavy, but they just didn't give him enough to do or a truly credible reason to do what he was doing. He could've been a Hans Gruber but he ended up being a frustrated 2 dimensional computer tech that was too stiff to be really taken seriously. It's a shame really that John McTiernan got caught up in that Pellicano crap; he really could have knocked this film out of the ballpark. Plus I can't imagine he would have sat idly by while Fox ripped the guts out of the film in order to make it a PC PG-13. Yes they have McClane say Yippie Ki Yay but the Mother Fucker is drowned out like any other Die Hard shown on basic cable. Hopefully this will be the last in the series and if it is at least it will end with a meh instead of a whimper and a what the Fuck was that? Take that mere compliment Len Wiseman and never attempt this type of action movie again.

Grade: 3 Buckets