This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 12:49 am and is filed under Action, D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Len Wiseman
Starring: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Kevin Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cliff Curtis
Well, Bruce Willis is back as the wise-cracking energizer bunny of action movies, John Mclane. Eighties heroes are in vogue in Tinseltown and the Die Hard franchise is the second to cash in (following Rocky Balbo duhhh). They really stuck to the formula here, and managed to make a decent action pic that is high-energy, fast-paced and far-fetched (but to quote Meatloaf, “Two out of three ain’t bad”). The whole effort has a slight tongue-in-cheek tone, so it is easier to laugh with the ridiculous parts rather than at them. Willis is good and, as in #3, he has a buddy in this one, played by Justin “Hi, I’m a Mac” Long to help with the humour and techno jargon.
The Die Hards have always had high tech master villains and that continues with #4 which could have been called Die Hard 4: When Good Geeks Go Bad! Mclane’s personal life is its usual mess when he is asked to pick up a computer hacker, Matt Farrell (Long) for questioning. He gets there just in time to save Farrell’s life from some really serious dudes and the chase is on. Now Mclane has to keep Farrell alive and figure out what’s going on while foiling the bad guys from taking control of all the communications and utilities on the east coast.
“When Nerds Attack” is a popular Hollywood theme and we have seen similar stuff in movies like Enemy Of The State and, more recently, “Déjà Vu”. Still this movie is not bad and the explosion junkies will main vein it for a satisfying action fix. I am going to tie it with #2 for second place in the Die Hard series. Just don’t expect everything to make sense and a believability rating of no higher than impossible. Art it ain’t, but lively it is. Yippee Ki Yay!
July 21st, 2007 at 8:17 am
This movie seems like it was sitting on a shelf ready to be made the second the public had been waiting long enough for a good action flick! Like all of its Die Hard Precursors, this one asks you to suspend your disbelief entirely in order to swallow it. However, it is a edge of your seat full speed action movie, the kind that Bruce Willis is built for. Truth be told, although a little older and a little balder (but aren’t we all) Bruce jumps back into the John McLain Chair Pretty easily. The Action junkies will love this movie and the Rush Hour fans will appreciate yet another victory for this genre.
CC
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Is that the ‘its never too late to try another sequel’ genre?
he he. MMM