John McClane: Just another day in paradise.

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2007)

"Live Free or Die Hard", a long anticipated sequel of John McClane'f films, the Action / Adventure / Crime / Thriller is pure fun for its 130 minutes of run time. Almost twenty years after he single handedly (and barefooted) stood up against the group of ruthless international terrorists that held hostages, including John McClane's wife, Holly, in a Los Angeles skyscraper on one Christmas night, New York cop, tough guy John McClane is back. In the fourth "Die Hard" movie, McClane faces the biggest challenge of his career and the stakes are unbelievably high. In the first "Die Hard", the bad guys took over the building, in the second film, McClane was against a team of terrorists, led by Col. Stuart (Sadler) who was holding the entire airport hostage. In the third one a man calling himself "Simon" (Jeremy Irons) threatened to detonate bombs around New York City unless Detective John McClane cooperated in a game of "Simon Says". In the latest "Die Hard" installment, low-tech McClane("You're a Timex watch in a digital age", he's been told) is up against a ring of highly intelligent and dangerous Internet techno-terrorists who are very close to taking control of America's computer infrastructure, breaking in and shutting down all the networks, creating havoc and panic around the country in "fire sale". As the young hacker who happened to be on of the terrorists targets, explains, "It's a three-step... it's a three-step systematic attack on the entire national infrastructure. Okay, step one: take out all the transportation. Step two: the financial base and telecoms. Step three: You get rid of all the utilities. Gas, water, electric, nuclear. Pretty much anything that's run by computers which... which today is almost everything. So that's why they call it a fire sale, because everything must go." Technical terrorists-geniuses thoroughly thought through every possible small detail of the vicious fire sale attack but they did not include in their plan one variable, sarcastic, cynical, disappointed and wise cracking Detective John McClane who now works for Homeland Security. I loved the movie. It is a very decent entry in the "Die Hard" series. It is creative, the fights and explosions are spectacular, and the action sequences are full of adrenalin. John McClane is older, that's true but nothing can slow him down, and certainly not his age. When he is on the screen saving the day, his daughter, and his country, I know he would get every one of the bad guys, and I hope that he will be back - for another "Die Hard" movie.
"Live Free or Die Hard" is the first movie I've seen on Blue-Ray disk and I was very impressed by the quality of the picture and the sound. Since I have not seen it in the theater, it is the next best thing. :)