Pure Die Hard style entertainment for a new generation!

Rating: 7/10 (3 February 2008)

John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back in pure Die Hard style entertainment! This time, John is paired with slacker hacker Matt Ferrell (Justin Long) on a non stop, action packed road trip (can't believe all that is in the same sentence) to "get my daughter, kill the bad guys, and save the country!" This Die Hard has all the makings of any other Die Hard film. An ex-government computer genius is using a three stage attack on America's computer system to shut down the country (called a fire sail). This is what makes it unique. As the villain (Timothy Olyphant) notes, John McClane is an analog cop in a digital world. The hackers are shutting down the country while trying to kill Matt Ferrell and they are watching his every step as he and McClane race around Washington DC. The movie was something like Enemy of the State meets Bad Boys II with Die Hard elements incorporated into the mix.
John McClane never changes and that's what the audience loves. He gets beat up, he bleeds, he barely escapes the jaws of death and at the end of it all he laughs it off. Add to this that McClane is trying to keep up with Ferrell, a young kid who's leaps and bounds ahead of McClane in the digital world, but has long ways to go if he wants to survive getting shot at. The two of them were much more entertaining than Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the Bad Boys films.
There were some things in the film that got a bit annoying (not that it takes away from the film overall). FBI agent Bowman (Cliff Curtis) throughout the entire film walks around demanding things he needs from his underlings. The answer is usually in form of a guaranteed negative. Bowman follows up with, "Get me some (fill in the blank), I don't care how!" I can't begin to explain how many times in the film he does this. He's supposed to be some sort of big, bad FBI agent and he can't get anything done. He just yells at people like JJ Jameson to Hoffman (Spider-Man movies) to get something done but it's supposed to be serious, not funny.
The other downside is the villain Thomas Gabriel who is oh-so mangled by the likes of Tim Olyphant. I honestly think Olyphant is quickly becoming the worst big league actor in Hollywood, worse than Vin Diesel (and that's a tough position to beat). But who knows, maybe Vin Diesel will come out with some more of his long, drawn out, poorly acted, moronic action-garbage and beat Olyphant for the top spot as Hollywood's most terrible leading man. No one thought Ali could beat Foreman, but the champ still made a comeback, right? Overall, Die Hard 4.0 was summer action at some of the best it's ever been. I sincerely hope there is a Die Hard 5.