Papa's got the same old bag

Rating: 2/10 (4 July 2007)

I went to see Die Hard 4.0 (as it's called here in Europe) expecting the same kind of tongue- in-cheek and tough action as the excellent first film, a mediocre second one and a somewhat better third provided.
I was disappointed. Not only is Die Hard 4.0 quite humorless, it doesn't have any new ideas, although a couple of action scenes are impressive. It's completely laughable how clichéd some of the characters are: McClanes daughter for example. The villains are another problem; the main one is just boring and the tougher sidekick gets killed WAY too early.
4.0 has a lot in common with the first film. McClane talks with the villains over radio, there is a family member to rescue and even that certain famous line from the first film gets recycled. But it's the script and dialogue which really are terrible. I don't know why Hollywood's action writers still have a strange perversion for satellite phones. And helicopters. And why in the year 2007 do we still have stupid, huge control centers with a lot of blinking lights?
All that stuff aside, as I said some action scenes are good, but in the end Die Hard 4.0 is just a hollow and tired rewarming of an old franchise that should have been left in the 1980s and 90s.