It took three tries to do the first film justice

Rating: 9/10 (31 August 2007)

When Die Hard came out, we hadn't seem anything like it. One loud mouth cop against the bad guys (where bad guys are unstoppable international terrorists).
Oddly enough, every sequel since has carried the same theme. A bunch of foreign dudes with a lot of henchmen and a slew of artillery decide to rip off a bunch of money. And somehow, just somehow, we know that John McClain is going to stop them. We know he's going to get beat up a little bit. He will probably have a fist fight or two. Things will explode. You get the idea. Yet, the past two Die Hard films have left me limp. When the credits rolled at Die Hard 2 I thought "well there goes the franchise!". When I was done with Die Hard 3 I thought, "great, we turned John McClain into a buddy-cop series".
But Die Hard 4 was special. The director seemed to encapsulate what we liked about the first film. John is just a cop who seems to get himself into a nasty situation. He bleeds, he hurts, he nearly passes out. But it's John against the bad guys, and he's gotta do what he's gotta do. And we are with him on this adventure.
Expect to see a lot of "digital John". Obviously Bruno can't take a spill like he used to. Expect some cheesy one-liners when bad guys get what they had coming. Expect John to have absolutely no remorse. Expect to stand up and cheer, because John McClain is back.
There were some inconsistencies with this film. Some plot flaws. Even a bad cameo (sorry Kevin Smith). And heck, some plain out cheesy expected results. Yet it still stands out as the best action movie I have seen in the past couple of years, so you allow it. I give it a full 9 and 1/4 out of ten stars. Welcome back John. We actually look forward to Die Hard 5.