DIE HARD 4.0 (Len Wiseman, 2007) ***

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2008)

My tolerance for Bruce Willis only extends itself to when he portrays the seemingly indestructible Detective John McClane in the DIE HARD films – a role which, even twenty years from its inception, still fits him like a glove. His charismatic persona goes a long way in making this hopelessly complicated and yet often dumbly illogical blockbuster undeniably entertaining throughout its not ungenerous 130 minute running time; needless to say, the spectacular action set-pieces are practically innumerable, with each one taking pains to outdo its predecessor in grandness and incredulity.
I can’t hope to make head or tails of the plot for those of you who haven’t seen it yet: suffice it to say, it’s predictably tinged with post-9/11 paranoia in the villains’ bid to put America on its bended knees through the wizardry of a network of geeky cyber-hackers…or something. I have to laugh when in the 1960s, many Cold War espionage pictures were dismissed as incomprehensible, because today’s penchant for hi-tech hijinks and unspeakably technical verbosity in even the most unassuming of thrillers shows a total lack of audience-friendliness. Another puzzling trait in contemporary Hollywood movies for me is the fact that anonymous (often impossibly young) villains are chosen to face off against the formidable hero of the day which rather makes one wonder why it took the latter two-and-a-half hours and so many near death experiences to get rid of this unfailingly sore loser; this is certainly the case here since the main villain is played by an unknown actor, his character was fired by the U.S. government when his plans were deemed too ambitious for them and, worse still, is effortlessly upstaged by his female co-conspirator/lover Maggie Q (who eventually meets her demise in one of the film’s lengthiest and most impressive action sequences). Interestingly enough, Willis himself is flanked by a computer freak but his wimpering, stuttering schtick outstays its welcome; writer-director-actor Kevin Smith has a pleasant cameo as the hacker guru dubbing himself “Warlock”.
Although one is expected to suspend his disbelief in films of this kind, there were a couple of stupid plot-holes the size of Manhattan which bugged me no end: if the villain was a top official in the U.S. Security defense program, clearly bears a grudge against them for humiliating him and is actually enacting the very threat he proposed back then in the first place, why do the F.B.I. need John McClane to alert them to his identity? Besides, if the villain is so technologically adept that he creates ultra-sensitive security programs for the U.S. government, how come he needs a whole barrage of computer geeks to put his plan into action (which, naturally, also necessitates an assortment of armed-to-their-teeth henchmen to eliminate them once they’ve completed their assignment?).