Worry not - Die Hard is BACK!

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2007)

A movie needs four things to really feel like a true Die Hard movie: Bruce Willis as John McClane, Michael Kamen's musical score, Jan DeBont's cinematography, and a memorable villain.
Live Free or Die Hard has only one of those four things.
...yet despite that fact, I was surprised to find that it is not only a good flick, but probably the best Die Hard movie since the first. Bruce is back in full force as McClane. Marco Beltrami did a phenomenal job of imitating Kamen's scores, possibly even using some of the same themes and musical cues from previous films. This goes a long way toward creating the atmosphere of a Die Hard film. The cinematography seemed a little more modern and slick than previous installments, but they were very smart in avoiding a lot of the modern trends that would have really taken away from the film: Slo-mo is used very sparingly, and the more frenetic action scenes aren't all just quick-cut, shaky-cam, over-edited messes.
This leaves us with the villain situation. Timothy Olyphant is a good actor who can really steal a scene in the right role. But here he is only given a couple of really meaty moments to shine, and comparing him to classic villainous actors like Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons is just unfair. So while he does a fine job, his character is not particularly memorable. The rest of the villains are filled out with the usual generic henchman, with the exception of a kung-fu right-hand woman and an overly-acrobatic top thug straight out of a Bond film.
Justin Long has always been a fun, underrated actor in my opinion, but again I was worried he'd come across as a lame comic relief sidekick. Yes, he provides a lot of the laughs for the movie, but he is able to do it in a way that seems natural for his character, and it never seems forced. I still hope that his career continues to be successful, and he gets better and better roles. (and yes, his computer in the movie IS a Mac.) I was extremely worried going into this film and had kept my expectations down accordingly. The director and the unthinkable PG-13 rating made everyone go "huh?" But you really don't even notice. If you didn't already know going in, you'd probably think it was an R. It's always nice to have high hopes for a film and have that film match your expectations, but to go in and be SO pleasantly surprised is a great feeling. I was grinning though half the movie just because I was so thrilled it was living up to the Die Hard name. The action is exciting and even if they went over-the-top in a couple sequences (the F-35 scene is quite far-fetched and feels like it belongs more in a True Lies movie), it never takes you out of the movie. It's just a great action flick.
This probably ranks second in the franchise only to the original in my opinion, and has now taken the top spot as my favorite film of the year so far.