Worst Effort in the Series- Die Hard Jumped the Shark

Rating: 5/10 (4 July 2007)

I read all the critics reviews of the new Die Hard movie and knew I would not like the film. My expectations were very low and after seeing the film I got exactly what I expected. DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! Critics usually lower their standards during the summer, when most of the movies suck anyway. Furthermore, they are giving praise to Die Hard 4 because they are fed up with CGI-infested action/comic movies. Die Hard 4 does not use a lot of CGI.
On to the movie. The script is horrible. The dialog is bland and repetitive. The side characters and villains are boring. Justin Long was better than I thought he'd be, but his performance is no where near Sam Jackson's in DH3. Bruce Willis tries his best, but the bad script and poor one-liners and lack of swearing ruin his efforts. This is a cheesy action movie with Die Hard slapped on the prints. All attempts to recall the previous films are vague and forced. Len Wiseman may be good at action sequences, but he turned Die Hard into a cartoon. The lighting and cinematography don't resemble Die Hard at all. The Previous 3 films looked and felt like Die Hard movies. This feels like Underworld or Enemy of the State. The action is way over the top. The beauty of the previous entries was that the action slowly built up through the film and the progression made things believable. In this film, there is no progression, just gratuitous action scenes that are there just for show, not for story. I love the previous Die Hard films, but this one made it Jump the Shark, a la Lethal Weapon 3 and 4. The only reason I'd want there to be a DH5 would be so they could bring in a writer and director who would stay faithful to the previous 3 installments. They should just pretend DH4 never happened. Don't even rent it.
I think the studio wanted PG-13 because they knew they had a lemon of a movie and wanted to get more people out to see it. They were also afraid of Transformers. They should be. Transformers was way better.