Loses some of the classic Die Hard appeal, but thrilling nonetheless.

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2008)

One of the main appeals of the Die Hard franchise was always that it wasn't some super-spy or big badass cop taking on some superhuman bad guys. It was just an ordinary man in a small, but deadly situation. Slowly the setting has gotten larger and larger (from an office building to an airport to New York and now it's the entire nation) and that takes a little bit of the fun out of it. Also the fact that McClane is more superhuman than human (the original John McClane wouldn't have survived everything this one went through) takes a bit of the classic Die Hard feel away.
It's all a little over-the-top and some of it is just too contrived to stand (the jet vs. rig was pathetic) but it still manages to be one of the most entertaining, action-packed and completely engaging action films of all time. It really perfects the type of stuff the genre has been trying to achieve this decade (the massive-scale, apocalyptic fear, technology based kind of stuff). In fact, off the top of my head only this and Shooter are the only really admirable pure action films of the decade. McClane is such a fun, mantastic character and his aging charisma makes Live Free or Die Hard an insanely enjoyable picture.
Bruce Willis was born for this character and he just brings a grin to my face every time he plays him (that laugh is just perfect). Justin Long, surprisingly, is the perfect sidekick for Bruce in this one. Timothy Olyphant is a pretty lackluster villain. Too young, too dull, too annoying and too...lame. The real badass villain comes in the form of the seemingly-robotic Maggie Q who kicks a hell of a lot of ass before making her leave in my favorite scene of the entire film. All in all, it's pretty contrived and doesn't really stick to the Die Hard formula I love so much but it's still wicked entertaining and one of the best purely action films ever made.