Movie Night: "Live Free or Die Hard"

I managed to work in a movie night yesterday and I am so happy I did. Thanks to FX and theirs DVD on TV specials, I saw my first movie in the "Die Hard" franchise. I know, I should be very ashamed for never having seen any of these movies and I really am. They sound like movies I would love, especially if they're anything like the fourth installment. I feel bad, not being able to compare and contrast the films, but I imagine having a newbie's impression would be good in some ways. For one, I'm sure every film critic out there compared this film against the previous ones. Also, as a first-time viewer and not a diehard fan of the franchise (I couldn't resist), I can give an honest and unbiased opinion on the fourth film. "Live Free or Die Hard" is all about John McClane, aka the original Jack Bauer, fighting cyber-terrorists. You've got Timothy Olyphant as the big bad head terrorist and computer genius, Justin Long as a hacker hunted by the terrorists' assassins, Bruce Willis as a badass saving pretty much everyone, Kevin Smith as another hacker genius, and Maggie Q as another cyber-terrorist. The terrorists are basically shutting down every part of the nation's infrastructure run by a computer, which means the terrorists are shutting down every part of the nation's infrastructure. I wanted a better reason for their actions than "the main villain got really screwed over by the good guys and turned to the dark side," but with this kind of movie you just accept it and move on. McClane gets involved, things get personal, and much hell gets rained down on the bad guys.

With my genius overview of the plot out of the way, I'd like to say I absolutely adored this movie. This was the textbook definition of a summer blockbuster movie. It was great to see McClane, who really is just Jack Bauer with better one-liners, kill off assassins left and right while you've got the average guy Justin Long along for the ride to shout out what the audience is thinking. But it was also great to hear McClane's confusion as the one guy in the movie who doesn't get all this computer business. Speaking as someone who thinks figuring out computers is like figuring out an ancient, dead, foreign language, I knew how McClane felt being around all these pretentious computer hackers who think that people who don't understand computers are clearly mentally impaired. But I also like dragging otherwise normal people along for near-death experiences and the like. You get the audience surrogate, but you also get to watch a normal person get thrust into impossible circumstances and see how they react and rise (or fall) to the occasion. It's probably why I loved "District 9" so much.

For a movie all about cyber warfare, the action scenes are fantastic. The whole time I watched this movie, I couldn't stop thinking what a giant budget it must have had. But I think they use almost every cent of their budget well, making riveting action sequences that are a perfect mix of hand-to-hand combat and large-scale destruction and explosions. Much to my surprise, there's also some parkour thrown in there on the side of the terrorists. I wasn't expecting it, but I really enjoyed its random presence. My only complaint about the action is one of the final large-scale sequences, in which McClane is chased by a military jet fighter deceived to think he's the enemy. The fighter fires missiles at him repeatedly, collapsing the elevated freeway while McClane in his semi truck dodges. At one point, he even ends up on top of the fighter. This sequence was the only one that went a little too over-the-top and it really should have been cut down quite a bit. Aside from being too over-the-top, it's also kind of distracting from the plot as he's fighting a military plane, not the terrorists. The movie clocks in at 129 minutes, and it would have benefited from the cut.

In the end, you get all the action movie staples: the bad guy has a moment where he tries to argue that he's really the good guy, a family member is held hostage, things get personal, the second terrorist in command is killed off early, there are plenty of scenes of the government agencies running around looking ineffective, plenty of things are blown up, the hero and the villain exchange threatening witticisms, the villain was initially on the side of the good guys, the hero can suffer multiple physical wounds without being slowed down in the least, computers can do anything, and there's even a small hint of romance thrown in. And yes, for all those people out there who actually are fans of the franchise (and have therefore already seen this movie, rendering this sentence anticlimactic and pointless), you get John McClane's totally awesome, totally ridiculous catchphrase during the climax.

Grade: A+ (One of my favorite pieces of advice from a favored film critic of mine is to judge a movie against its own aspirations. "Live Free or Die Hard" wasn't trying to be the "Citizen Kane" of action movies. It was trying to be a grand old time at the movies in the summertime. Aside from my slight quibble about the last action sequence, it absolutely achieved this goal. If only we were lucky enough to get a great action movie like this every summer.)