A black spot on the Die Hard name

Rating: 1/10 (24 September 2007)

I'm amazed at the voting going on for this film - are you all as controlled as the computer systems were in the movie!
Die Hard's 1-3 made a good trilogy, but they have been tainted forever by this poor excuse of a fourth film in the franchise. I should of known from the clichéd opening scene with John Mclane and his daughter (which is just an appalling, badly written scene, like they'd stand there and talk about their problems in front of the is he/isn't he boyfriend) that this movie's intellectual barometer was set on dumb.
Everything about this movie seems to be a cliché of a cliché. Bruce seems to have forgotten what the John McClane character is like, because he doesn't come across the same as he does in the previous 3 films, and is not helped by the poor dialog and cheesy one-liners that are poorly timed. All of the other characters are clichés too - Timothy's ice cold bad guy, Maggie Q's brainy, beautiful, femme fatale, the FBI head who for some unknown reason can't understand what's going on or get anything done, but John McClane can work everything out no problem, even without the resources of the whole FBI to help, all he needs is a phone and a gun! - I mean come on people, this is as lazy a plot as you could get.
Some of the set pieces are OK, but then when the filmmakers go into overdrive and have McClane climb onto a moving jet fighter, it all went out the window - this is NOT a fantasy movie, I didn't expect to see Lord of the Rings - so McClane should not be on top of a moving jet plane for Christ's sake!
Everything about the movie screams of laziness. Poor script, I mean it just has some of the worst dialog and plot points ever. Poor casting, I mean you can see them now "Hey, let's get the guy from the Mac ads, everyone will relate to him as a computer genius!" Errr, no, we don't! Poor acting - Bruce is totally by the numbers, like he turned up, was told what to say on the day, does a take and then heads for lunch, and Cliff Curtis also does everything by the numbers too, a shame for a good actor to have clearly given up on his duties this time.
And Len Wiseman, come on people, what an appalling choice for this franchise, he's a knock off Michael Bay - and Michael bay hasn't made a good movie in a long time - don't get me started on Transformers!
This movie is terrible, and the most appalling thing is the rating it's got in IMDb. It's ironic how the movie points towards bringing down a corrupt government and starting again, because everything today is marketing spin, and yet here we are, giving a truly awful film a high score??? Why, because it's Die Hard???? Who are the real suckers at the end of the day huh? Don't believe the hype people, this film is a joke.