The Die Hard franchise becomes run-of-the-mill action movie

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2013)

If you're into effects-driven action and unwavering heroes with hairy chests, then Die Hard 4.0 will be right up your street. Brainless fun where helicopters are taken down by running cars up an improvised ramp (made out of cars) and computer software makes chirping noises like a teletype. It's a Bruce Willis movie, so you can't really complain about the lack of realism. His co-stars -- Tim Olyphant, Justin Long -- are remarkably good. My only real regret is that the unique premise of the Die Hard movies has been scrapped. In the original run, John McClane is an antihero who just wanted to pick up a pint of milk at his local 7-Eleven (or something along those lines) and then got engaged by international terrorists, a fact which he bitterly and repeatedly contemplated throughout the rest of the movie. That stance made the series so unique and so much fun to watch. To bad it evaporated.