Posted on 06/27/2007 1:59:47 PM PDT by pabianice
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The latest Die Hard movie is a bit of energetic nonsense that's fun to watch and as substantial as a sand castle. Bruce Willis does his John McClean again ... surviving over two hours of gunshots, broken bones, and high-speed impacts, any one of which would kill a real person. We've seen it before.
The plot -- what there is of it -- involves what hackers call a "fire sale" -- a cyber attack upon the country so complete and devastating that it would throw us back into the 17th century; i.e. 'everything must go.' Computers, transportation, utilities, finance, fire and police -- all toast. Tim Olyphant -- the wonderfully played lawman and hardware store owner from "Deadwood" -- plays the villian with some nice sneers and scenery-chewing. McLean's daughter channels the character of Jack Slater's kick-ass daughter from "Last Action Hero." And the female lead villian is fun to watch in several impossible chop-socky sequences right out of a Hong Kong low-budget flick. Even Tim Russ -- 'Tuvok' from the late "Star Trek: Voyager" -- puts in what must have been just one day's work on the set. It is almost at the film's end that we find out what the bad guys want -- revenge for being treated with lack of respect and money. Duh! They have downloaded the entire U.S. financial database on a laptop (BIG laugh here, unfortunately) and plan to live at ease on some unnamed tropical island after destroying the U.S.' economy. But by the time we learn this, we've pretty much lost interest. Josh Long, very watchable as a hacker with a heart of gold, also does some good work in the film, and is, in fact, its most watchable asset. But all is submerged in impossible action scenes, including a semi being chased through the highway system in DC by an F-35, with spectacular if aerodynamically impossible results. Perhaps one problem is that with each "Die Hard" film, the stunts have gone from merely spectacular-but-possible to just bad scicnce fiction.
Worth seeing? Sure. Like watching 4th of July fireworks. Fun flames and bursts of color. Fits the season pretty well.
Yippie Kay-Yay.......
Well I’m there...
Thank you so much!
It’s nice to see a review that states what I want in a movie. Nothing deep, just eye candy and some escape for a few hours!
Sounds great! :-)
Die Hard was great. II was watchable, if you didn't think too hard about it. I missed III. Likely will be missing IV, as well.
While I might spend the money to rent the DVD, I refuse to spend 10 bucks at the theater. Now Transformers, thats a whole different ball of wax. I foresee lines around the block, hopefully I can get in during the Sunday matinee.
I’m a little dubious on Transformers. I really, really hope that it’s going to be a good flick. But I’m not holding my breath...
That's one thing I liked about Die Hard 1: the hero actually could get hurt. If you walk barefooted across broken glass your feet will bleed. By the end of the Movie McClean looked like he had been through hell.
Heh, and thus the "Yippy Ky ay *****" was born. Had to be one of the better scenes in the picture.
My personal ratings system is generally based around 3 things, in no particular order:
1. Fast Cars
2. Big Explosions
3. Naked Women
Generally the movies that I watch, don't bog you down with a whole lot of details, like plot or character development.
Mrs. WBill dragged me to an "Independent Film Festival". It was like watching paint dry, only less fascinating. I told her that the movies were all going to be about gays, and have subtitles. She said "No No No. This is QUALITY cinema".
The First Movie? Something about a bunch of German Lesbians. It had subtitles.
I stand vindicated.
As long as Danny Glover isn’t in it...
Don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard and read that LFODH uses very little cgi effects.
I’m not convinced Transformers is going to have that big an audience. It wasn’t that popular 20 years ago, and Michael Bay has such a long history of underperforming movies (largely because he’s a terrible director) I don’t think it’s going to make that much.
According to Willis the majority of the effects in DH4 are physical, only one major CG scene. I’m heading out tonight, works been sucking lately and I need to see things blow up.
Okay, that's all I needed to know. What time's the next show??!!
Ho hum.... Another shoot ‘em up, blow ‘em movie. Whoopie.
Die Hard II was good because there was a solid story behind it. The movie had already been written before it had been adapted into a Die Hard sequel. The sequence of events wasn’t laid out as well as the first one and a bit more violent, too. The events in the first were choreographed well right from the time Holly slams John’s picture face-down on the desk.
Danny Glover was in Lethal Weapon ... this is Die Hard (though Sam Jackson was in III).
Hemorrhage
"Munching in Munich?"
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