The DNA is degraded.

Rating: 3/10 (23 October 2008)

The original "Die Hard" was a crudely entertaining action movie with comic villains and a couple of humorous exchanges in addition to the usual violent sequences that had Bruce Willis as Officer John McClane running barefoot through a sea of broken glass. The next episode in the franchise, "Die Harder," switched the locale from the Nakatomi Building to Dulles and was essentially a repeat, duller than the first despite the enhanced special f/x. The third installment, "Die Hardest of All," or was it, "Die, Whether You Like It Or not"?, put Willis back in New York with Samuel Jackson as his unwilling sidekick and Jeremy Irons as the least believable German heavy imaginable. It wasn't up to the standard of the original -- so few copies are -- but it was more entertaining than the second installment. I know. I got the titles all mixed up but these sequels come thick and fast and seem to pile atop one another like cow flops.
This one keeps nothing more than the character of John McLaine and the acing of Bruce Willin in the part. He has devolved into a routine action hero. He has no vices. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't say anything that is politically incorrect. He doesn't use cuss words. He doesn't suffer from a hangover. He has no humanity to speak off. It could be Arnold Schwarzenegger in the part, or Sylvester Stallone, back in the 80s, or Dolph Lundgren or Jacques van Damm a decade ago. Interchangeable. In the next installment, may we look forward to a silver-haired Willis, his hair grown back, who is a vegetarian and is serenely awaiting The Rapture, the satisfaction of his utter boredom tempered by the saddening realization that the Jews, Moslems, Zoroastrians, Coptic Christians, and Animists of all stripes will not ascend into heaven to sittith in Paradise? Well, why not? This fourth outing has drained the character and plot of any blood the original had. The thing's been almost completely eviscerated. Nothing is left but the gall.
The story involves the takeover and the threatened demolishing of the entire computer system that now permits the United States to function. But if you think you're going to learn anything about how this might be done, or if there will be suspenseful scenes in which we follow some hacker through the system, you'd be wrong.
It's action, period, 24/7. That's all it's really about. There's little time left for humor or character development. Instead of Officer McClane hanging on the edge of an endless elevator shaft in the Nakatomi Building, there's an entire SUV dangling at the end of a cable in an elevator shaft. Not enough? Okay, there are two people having a vicious fight within the precariously suspended vehicle. Need still more? There's a guy a few floors up with an automatic weapon, shooting the SUV full of holes. And there is, trust me, nothing funny about the villains. The only wisecracks come from Willis and a young computer geek he drags around by the hair, and they're not very funny. What really makes me gag is that conversations now use a telegraphic style. Nobody says, "Let's launch the rockets." It's, "Launch rockets," even though the addressee is standing next to the speakers.
Would you like to see one car smash into another in the Holland Tunnel, leap up, and spin over and over eight or nine times in mid-air? If so, this is the movie for you. If you're looking for anything in the way of comedy or human interest to balance the action, don't look here.