Try Hard 3.9

Rating: 1/10 (12 August 2007)

This film has been getting poor reviews since being released in New Zealand. The 7.9 average rating on IMDb made me think that reviewers were having an off day.
Having seen it, the critics were right. Suggested new title - TRY HARD 3.9
If you thought the original premise was straight from a Tom Clancy novel then you are close to the truth. No doubt Mr Clancy has also read the original Farewell to Arms article by John Carlin.
The first 30 minutes were vintage wise-cracking, shoot first-ask questions later Willis.
The remainder of the film had a plot shot full of holes. Were communications down or up ? Was the power on or off ? Was traffic grid-locked or the streets wide open ? Did the FBI have it's own helicopters or had the bad guys stolen them too (sarcasm).If Warlock was so good, why wasn't he one of the original targeted hackers? And then the dumb set action pieces began. Perhaps the lift scene was a wink and nod to the first movie, but the original John McClane would have broken the Asian ninjas neck and moved on.
Speaking of holes. I have seldom seen an action movie where the bullet holes appear, disappear, re-appear and vanish so often between scenes. The director must have found the magic bullet that shot Kennedy.
The truck vs fighter scene was like watching the bad parts of True Lies and the Matrix spliced together. And are we really meant to believe that a cyber terrorist would leave the government GPS tracking unit attached to his getaway van ! My only surprise was that they didn't remove it with a barrel roll ala Transporter 2.
I walked out of Spider Man 3 after 60 minutes. I wish I had walked out of Try Hard 3.9 after 30.