Action - Stunts - Car Chases - BOOM!

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2007)

By chance I noticed that my favourite theatre was showing a Midnight screening of Die Hard 4. Being a fan of the first three films, I was a little jazzed for another go-round with John McClane. Was it worth it? Well, it's no Die-hard 1 or 2, but gives you some fun action. The biggest setback is the lack of original ideas, there are aspects of identifiable plot points from many other films. There are pieces of "Last Action Hero", "True Lies", "Die Hard 2", "Italian Job", even "Road Warrior". The biggest asset is a well paced storyline with plenty of action. People who are fans of real stunts over CGI will be generally pleased. The scenes that are obviously digital effects are not make-or-break scenes, the entire film doesn't depend on whether we buy the effects shots or not. There is a good deal of car/truck/helicopter/jet fighter chase scenes. However, by we the time we get to the third act, it all starts to feel familiar. Knowing this, the filmmakers cut to the chase and don't even pretend that SuperJohn (TV ads say he isn't another superhero - but he does have super powers). McClane continues to walk away from explosions, car wrecks, exploding cars, exploding freeways, and exploding buildings. The bad guys he kills along the way are just statistics after awhile. The key villain has a nice angry look, and a couple other supporting characters aren't wooden.
Buddied up this time around is Justin Long (of "I'm a Mac" fame). He just barely makes the cut of being cool enough to be a Keanu Reeves, without it feeling like "let's add all the things that young people find hip and cool". The movie certainly does lobby for the younger generation (a McClane prequel is on the drawing boards). It features hackers, Kevin Smith, a teenage McClane hottie, cluelessness about the 70s, OnStar, Blackberries, and so on. If it wasn't for extra re-writes and even more helicopters, it would be like "Mercury Rising" or some other action-for-action's-sake kind of dullness. The movie has moments of serious bad guy stuff, and missteps trying to toss in inappropriate jokes. The film constantly is riding the line of trying to have it's cake and eat it too. A few scenes seem to cast a serious tone on brutal violence, but then gleefully slaughters bad guys. "Kids, Violence is Bad, now lets go kill more Bad Guys". It is obviously the film was shot to be an 'R' rated film. There are scenes that look like bad TV dubbing, with actors saying tame words over naughty words, but the lips aren't matching.
The cinematography was notably slick, something better than '24'.
I Give it 6 out of 10.