Better than i thought

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2007)

I had heard a lot of bad things about this installment in the Die Hard-series. That the good old catch-phrase was even deprived of it's "f-word". While that did sound lame, i decided to give it a fair try. And it was a lot better than what i expected.
It's not an easy thing following up on the legacy of the first Die Hard-movie. It's one of my absolute favorites in the genre and a classic action movie if ever there was one. It was action-filled, mean and filled with loads of the dirty action scenes that i came to love. Also John McClane was the ultimate action hero. Bruce Willis wasn't filled with steroids like most of the action stars of the time, but he made up for it with loads of attitude and mean spirit. Die Hard 2 and 3 were not as bad as one might have feared, but something was obviously lacking. This fourth movie is also lacking seen from the perspective of the first movie, but it's still a good action movie that doesn't suffer as much from it's rating as i feared.
The positive points here is that the pace is quite high through the whole movie. The action scenes are generally very well done and look expensive. Also they don't look too "plastic" like they tend to do in some movies that rely too heavily on obvious CGI. Also the Die Hard-feeling is quite well preserved, with the fact that McClane is not really your typical omnipotent hero, rather someone who gets the job done even if it's not pretty or sometimes even intentional.
I felt the movie had two major cons. First of all, I don't dislike Timothy Olyphant, but i feel he was seriously miscast here. He doesn't have the charisma nor the looks to make a good villain. Die Hard has come to depend on charismatic villains. That is what raised both the first and the third movie above the crowd. The lack of a charismatic villain in the second movie was very obvious, and it's very obvious here too. He's just not evil enough. The second con is the rating problem. It becomes a problem especially because the previous movies were "all-out" when it came to violence and profanity. I'm not the kind of person who demands gore and blood in movies, but when it becomes very obvious such things are cut out, it does ruin the experience somewhat.
There are a few other minor problems in this movie, like a few extremely unlikely scenes where all plausibility is left behind. I won't say what they are but one of them involves a helicopter and a car, and it's very far from any reality. All in all though, i found this to be a quite enjoyable movie. More so than i thought i would. It's not a classic, nor will it ever be, but it's a pretty good continuation of the Die Hard-franchise and also a pretty good action movie in it's own right. I feel that i can recommend it. 7/10.