Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
5/10
2007-07-04 20:45
When writing about the original Die Hard back in April, I said: "My fear is that Live Free or Die Hard doesn't appear to be set anywhere specific, and that by jettisoning all the series trademarks (perhaps in pursuit of originality) instead they'll simply end up with a generic action film with no distinguishing features."
Those fears were pretty well realised. It's set in and around Washington, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia; more than a few places. This isn't a problem in itself.
It was a fun action film. Things exploded, people got shot. It was fun. But the Die Hard series was always a cut above other fun action films, in almost every way. And in no small part because of their earthy, grounded hero who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By comparison, Die Hard 4.0 (ugh) is practically featureless. Its villain is an unthreatening technical support guy with a wholly predictable grudge, and John McClane has become an inhuman superhero. He gets hit by cars, shot and covered in explosions more than any of the previous films combined, yet continues with barely an acknowledging groan.
There were ridiculously survived explosions in the previous films - helicopter crash on the roof of Nakatomi Plaza, ejecting from an exploding plane, a jump from an exploding boat. But they were the exceptions, accepted after McClane's credentials as a human-being had been established.
The difference in McClane can mostly be summed up by the fact that, in this film, he "kills" a helicopter with a car because he was out of bullets. With a car! It looks cool - you saw it in the trailer, remember? - but this should be evidence enough that the laws of physics no longer apply.
This isn't entirely a problem in itself. McClane is no longer McClane, his physical powers increased to a ridiculous degree. In terms of personality, he no longer confounds enemies with his easy-go-lucky humour. I mean, sure, he calls a dead woman a whore a few times, but it's far from the walkie-talkie taunting of Hans Gruber.
But this would still leave room for a perfectly enjoyable, exciting, big-budget action movie. Cars fly, explosions explode, and so on. Except it struggles still.
McClane has always been a flawed character. We root for him because he's the everyman, the unfortunate Joe stuck in a bad situation against a cartoonish villain we hate. Put him up against a distant and unimposing bad guy (however well-played by Olyphant), and things don't hang together. We still like McClane. He's still the good guy, however many times he shoots unarmed men. But until Olyphant kidnaps McClane's daughter in the final act - and barely even then - there's no substantial sense of menace, or threat. I felt no emotional connection to anyone or anything. I was never excited.
Which leaves the mechanical. The set-pieces are technically impressive - roads collapse, fighter jets explode, people who know Parkour swing around a lot. But what was here except for the trailer? What was here that wasn't just borrowed from other films? Since Die Hard 3, kung-fu and parkour have become popular in Western action films, and so Die Hard does its duty and appropriates them for itself. And fighter jets? I felt like I was watching True Lies again, which wasn't a good thing. I want more than this from Die Hard.
But it's fine. Really, it is. It's competent and it's fun and I'll give it a 6. But I could have had as much fun watching a movie starring The Rock, which would probably have had more distinguishing features and 10 percent of the budget.
Two side-notes.
One: Watching a film on the day on which it's set is an odd experience.
Two: I love going to the cinema, but they increasingly suck. The picture went crap half an hour in, and a few minutes later the film turned off completely. We had to sit for ten minutes while they fixed it, joking amongst ourselves about how we could avoid such problems if we simply pirated it and watched it on the digital projector at home.
I spitefully downloaded the movie as soon as I got back.
0.3
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