Strong DIE HARD movie that never quite punches through...

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2007)

I'm a huge fan of this series. The original DIE HARD was probably the single greatest movie experience of my life the first time I saw it (and I ended up seeing it 7 times in the theater -- a personal record). I prefer the second one to the third because the 2nd seemed to retain more of that DIE HARD feel. This fourth one was a worthy follow-up, very entertaining, and probably as good as 2 or 3 IMO... but still fell short of finding that old DIE HARD (1988) magic.
The scope of these films have widened with each entry and LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD is no exception. After seizing a building in the original movie, an airport in the 1st follow-up and then a city, it seemed the logical choice was for now our entire country to be seized by terrorists (and for McClane's battlefield to encompass several states). In this respect, the film feels like it belongs in this series.
There were some truly cool scenes involving the terrorists mucking up the country (including a very clever video piece of U.S. Presidents that the bad guys fired into every home in the country).
I did find the movie lacking in certain areas, causing it to fall short of the original masterpiece that it stems from:
*The villains didn't have the personality that the villains of DIE HARD did. Comparing Tim Olyphant's character to Hans Gruber is laughable, but I think the even the henchmen of LFODHM could have been thought-out more. In the classic DIE HARD all 12 henchmen were very distinguishable... the henchmen in this film were basically HARD GUY WITH GUN #1, HARD GUY WITH GUN #2, etc., Asian GIRL. Give the henchmen just a little personality--it would be so much satisfying when McClane kills them! I remember cheering in the original DIE HARD when certain henchmen were killed... here, not so much.
*The movie played it a little safe with the violence, and even went as far as showing a pilot land safely with his parachute (just like the ol' GI JOE cartoons used to do to erase the possibility of violence). I wanted more of McClane pounding bad guys with his fists. Really the only significant fistfight in this film was vs. a 101-pound girl.
Overall, pretty solid, not outstanding. A lot of nice touches, including some warm moments with McClane and his sidekick character.