Finally a REAL Blockbuster

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2007)

In a year in which blockbusters typically featured super-heroes, -robots or -pirates, along comes an average Joe (and, dare I say it... Anti-Hero) to blow the CGI assisted competition out of the water (literally in one case).
Le's face it, until now '07 has promised a great line-up of blockbuster movies and sadly, has fallen short on most of the big promises that have been made. Transformers was absolutely disappointing to the point, where I have watched the original cartoon series pilot episodes and have found more depth those... 'nuff said. Pirates was totally incoherent story-wise, with the presence of Chow-Yun Fat being the only saving grace (sorry Johnny). And Spiderman... well I'm not going to even comment on Spiderman...
Then comes McLane. To be honest I was very skeptical of the idea at first, mainly because experience has taught me (especially in recent months)that sequels for some reason just fail to measure up to the originals. Also: the maker of Underworld 2 ?!, well suffice to say I was not really convinced.
When I went to see the movie, my skepticism lasted for about 10 minutes. That is, until Willis disposes of the first villain (who for some reason is French) by detonating a fire extinguisher and blasting the hapless "Frog" through the 3rd story window. The roller-coaster ride starts then, and does not end until the credits are running.
The plot an be explained in few quick words (it is an action flick no less). John McLane is sent on a mission to escort a young hacker to FBI headquarters for interrogation, as the FBI's computers have been infiltrated and they are rounding up all possible suspects. At the same time hackers throughout the US are being assassinated by a group of terrorist-hackers, led by Thoomas Gabriel, planning to wreak havoc by shutting down all utilities, electrical and otherwise, hence effectively catapulting the country "back to the dark ages". Needless to say the terrorists and McLane cross paths, and... well you'll just have to find out...
The action is tightly packed and fast-paced. Not least thanks to Wiseman's use of lighting and and the clever, and more importantly subtle (as in "not in-your-face") usage of CGI to enhance the action scene's visual realism. Kudos to Wiseman for that.
The actors do a great job to convey the needed sense of realism to their roles so as to make the movie believable. Admittedly the role of McLane is not a huge stretch for Willis, who plays the reluctant hero to perfection. It is obvious that McLane, with 3 successfully accomplished missions under his belt already, is an old veteran of his trade, unflappable and not really very impressed by yet another terrorist threatening his country and family. He fires off the cool one-liners as if he had never left. Justin Long does far better than expected as well. He plays the young hacker Matt Farrell alongside our protagonist who is the terrorist's target. Long does a good job in conveying the role of the side-kick, without overly extending his on-screen welcome. His role is believable and affable; and his dialog, especially with Willis and Kevin Smith (kudos as well. he does a great job as "Warlock"), is good enough to keep the movie's pace consistent. Timothy Olifant does reasonably well as the antagonist. He portrays the cold blooded head-hacker well enough. However I must say he was a bit too 2-dimensional for my taste. Alan Rickman he's not, but we're there for Willis anyway, so I'll let that slide. Maggie Q was a bit disappointing, not for her acting abilities, but for the relative briefness of her appearance. Sadly she does not speak much (in any of her US movies for that matter) but lets her fists do the talking (again, like in all the movies). Also, she is in arguably the most entertaining hand-to-hand combat scene between a man and a woman I have ever seen on the silver screen (eat your heart out Mr & Mrs Smith).
Of course one has to keep in mind that this film is an action film and thus has the story to match. But in terms of action films the plot was comprehensively well written, without excess fat, all-the-while exploring a bit of McLane's inner workings and his take on life as a "hero", which I found refreshing. Of course questions such as the classic, why does his car not break down after running into a wall, or how much ammo does he take with him to escort a suspect, or, more importantly, why are all of Olyphant's henchmen either French or Italian...? will never have answers. But in the end, as the credits were rolling I left the theater with a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that McLane has saved the day again in style. Which is a lot more than I can say for most of the other action films that have "happened" this year.
It's good to see McLane back and as strong as ever. Yippie-Kay-Yay