When one thinks of a dumb summer action movie they automatically assume there is nothing redeemable about it. There is nothing that can garner the film as a "good movie" because it is, after all, a dumb action movie. But working within the genre itself, perhaps a movie with a ridiculously unrealistic script, over-the-top action scenes and characters can still well executed. “Live Free or Die Hard” is just that. Yes, the story is simplistically absurd and the action scenes wouldn’t happen in reality, but that’s part of the fun. And “fun” hasn’t looked this good in awhile.
Bruce Willis returns as John McClain, who has been promoted to detective. He picks up a hacker who was accidentally involved with a group of computer-savvy terrorists planning on shutting down America. From there on out, McClain goes through hell trying to protect the kid while traveling around the east coast to save America.
Perhaps it’s not quite as absurd as I make it out to be, but that is the gist of it. What ensues are monstrous explosions, cars flinging at helicopters, hysterical one liners and a far more entertaining truck vs. jet battle than what “Transformers” offers.
Really, there’s nothing much wrong with this movie other than the fact it’s ridiculous. Bruce Willis looks great and plays the part with as much fun and coolness as he has in the past. Justin Long, known better as “Mac” in the Mac vs. PC commercials, does a fine job himself. He plays the part appropriate to the scenes and provides an entertaining little side-kick to Bruce Willis.
The bad acting comes from Timothy Olyphant as the antagonist of the film. I’m not entirely clear what he was trying to go for here. His character is cliché enough for an over-the-top villain so why didn’t he seize the opportunity and go crazy with it? Maggie Q didn’t help matters either and was only welcomed on-screen when she was getting her ass kicked by Bruce Willis.
The action scenes involving Bruce Willis are, of course, the true stars of the film. So as long as those scenes act well, who cares how well Olyphant and Q act? Right? John McClain has been through a great deal throughout these Die Hard films. In the early ones he was way more dramatic, but now it’s funny to watch a much older, mature McClain take on an advanced hover jet with an eighteen-wheeler and shake it off like it was nothing. Been-there-done-that, I guess. McClain is more of an unstoppable juggernaut than ever before and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fun to watch. He’s Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris, Solid Snake and Bruce Lee all rolled in to one testosterone heaving man. What’s not to like?
Okay, fun aside, the movie still has problems. A little bit of bad acting wasn’t as big of a problem as the fact that the storyline is fan-fiction material at best. I applaud director Len Wiseman for making a terrible story out to be so epic. There really wasn’t much anyone could do with such a script; but resourcefulness won out in the end.
The censoring is annoying as well. It's very obvious this was originally going to be rated R. I can tell where certain scenes were cut before too much vile language and violence were let loose. The dubbing over characters’ cursing is obvious as well. No doubt we’ll get an uncut, rated R version on DVD, but come on! This is “Die Hard”! It should’ve been R to begin with. The entire series has been an adult action flick so why dumb it down now?
None-the-less, “Live Free or Die Hard” is an affective action flick and probably the most entertaining movie of the summer. Flawed only in story design, but exciting in every other aspect-- Make it a first priority if you want to watch a really fun movie.
*** out of ****
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