This wasn't a "Die Hard" film

Rating: 2/10 (8 July 2008)

"Yippie Kai yay mother******" doesn't make a movie "Die Hard". And certainly the character portrayed by Bruce Willis this time wasn't quite the same as Lt. John McClane. No, what we saw this time around - without the smart assing, without the wittiness, with the meandering plot and with the energizer-bunny-never-show-pain antics of Bruce Willis' character was a vintage Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. It's an ironic twist for a movie franchise that was created originally with the intention of the film being a sequel to Schwarzenegger's "Commando".
Indeed, this is a long way from Die Hard or it's other two sequels. The "wrong place at the wrong time" motif doesn't fit, nor does the new action standard "Die Hard on a..." In a skyscraper, in an airport, in New York, and now this is what? Stuck in traffic? "In cyberspace" doesn't apply as McClane isn't involved online. No, that's the villain's area of expertise. John's an analog guy in a digital world (evidence proved in his out-of-touchness during Die Hard 2). He's also a smart ass, a jerk, a sarcastic and scathing SOB as well as human. The character Bruce Willis portrays in this film is none of this. Even if this is supposed to be "older" John McClane, some things don't change as we age.
And yet, McClane changes greatly. A man who was shown to be human, who has been shown to suffer, a man who's shown frustration and anger and despair now shows none of these emotions. He bounces off blunt objects and never seems hurt. That's not John McClane and that's not even Bruce Willis. That's not even a caricature of the McClane character. That's Schwarzenegger. Watch John wheel around Matt Farrell (Justin Long's character) and tell me you don't have "Terminator 2" visions dance before your eyes as Ah-nold wheeled around Eddie Furlong.
And that's why I hate this film: Everything I was made to love about the character and the concept was stripped away. If it was a stand-alone movie with Bruce Willis in the lead, it would work... But this isn't Die Hard to me and the character isn't anything like John McClane. Die Hard set a new standard in action films -- while this one seems to go back to the previous standard and embrace what the 1980's pre-Die Hard action movies set out to accomplish.
"Yippie Kai yay mother..." doesn't make John McClane, nor does flashing a wife beater t-shirt, bringing back a character missing since the original (Lucy McClane), or mentioning Holly. I wanted to see the grumpy bastard that is John McClane and instead, i got to see Len Wiseman and Bruce Willis bringing Ah-nuld's movie standard back to life.