Just didn't fit...

Rating: 6/10 (29 June 2007)

The first Die Hard was probably the best modern action film ever made. The second Die Hard works because the movie has a major sense of humor about how ridiculous it is to put John McClane through such a similar situation again; it practically makes fun of itself for a lot of the movie. The third one works because you have a bad guy that is out for revenge against John McClane. The fourth one though, it just felt like McClane's character was dropped in as an after thought. I don't think you can just drop John McClane into any story and call it Die Hard and this movie felt more like a Tom Clancy political thriller than a Die Hard movie.
While watching this I at least thought I would let it pass as a generic action movie, because I was having fun. However, then I started thinking about it and I'm sorry I need even my action movies to at least make a little bit of sense. There was just too much stuff in this one that didn't work for me. The first problem I had was that the bad guys created a giant traffic jam in DC causing congestion everywhere except of course for the streets they need for the major car chase scene. Also during the part of that car chase that took place in the tunnel, how come when the bad guy started turning the lights off in the tunnel not a single person though to turn their head lights on? However the biggest action scene that bugged me was the scene where John McClane is driving the big rig truck and being chased by the fighter plane. This scene was so laughably over the top that it had no place in a Die Hard movie. I know Die Hard movies are known for their over the top action at some points but I just could not stop laughing at how completely ridiculous this scene was. Oh and seriously, since when does the 695 beltway around Baltimore have palm trees? OK, that is a bit too nitpicky, but it was kind of funny.
The film seemed to me to also be extremely inconsistent about whether or not cell phones were working. The cell phones weren't working, so he reprogrammed the phone to use the old "satcomm" satellites instead. Then that stopped working and then a little bit later that is working again. Also I'm still amazed at how Kevin Smith's character is still able to hack into so much stuff even after all the power on the entire eastern seaboard has been shut off. I mean seriously there are a lot of servers out there that have battery backups and stuff, but a lot of the servers he would need to go through to have a good enough connection to do any of the hacking he was doing would have been shut down after the power outage. OK, maybe I am picking at too much of the film, but all this bugged me while watching the film and I wasn't able to just sit back and get sucked in like I would in any other Die Hard film.
The acting in the film for the most part was pretty good, except of course for the main bad guy. He had one facial expression for the entire movie and the tone of his voice never changed. His only way of showing anger was to throw something off his desk. His performance was so wooden; it just paled in comparison to Alan Rickman, William Sadler and Jeremy Irons, who all three just played wonderful bad guys.
The look and feel of the movie didn't feel at all like a Die Hard movie to me either. Sure, John McClane takes a good beating like he does in all the films but all the action seemed to crisp and clean. It didn't feel nearly as gritty as the previous Die Hard films. Also one of the things I noticed was the film seemed to have this predominantly blue color scheme going on. It just felt like there was this blue hue through out the film, where in the previous Die Hard films the predominant colors are very earthy and red. I don't know if anyone else even knows what I am talking about, but that is just something that I noticed that took away from the gritty Die Hard feeling.