Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Action
Format Viewed: Theatrical Release
Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.
Maybe this would’ve been better if it hadn’t been a Die Hard movie? Maybe?!
Man, I hate to say I told you so, but … wait, no – in fact, I love saying I told you so and often find myself taking a special satisfaction in knowing that I was right and everyone else was somewhat less than right … at least most of the time, that is. But alas, this is one of those few and far between occasions when I actually don’t like saying the phrase because there was just so much riding on this movie not sucking. It’s not like the Fantastic Four sequel this summer, where it doesn’t really make that much of a difference if it sucks or not because the first episode wasn’t really anything to go into the Hall of Fame, but this is different – this is Die Hard, for God sakes! Yippe-kai-yee, mother-f…
I guess in the end, it just seems like an obvious at this point – don’t try to bring back classic movie franchises simply because you think that there might still be another buck to be made. The last movie – arguably one of my favorite movies of all time – came out more than a decade ago, with the original where McClane threw Hans Gruber off the 32nd floor of Nakatasi Tower going on nearly twenty years old … would it have been so tough to simply leave this truly wonderful series alone?! Sadly, we live in a time when Hollywood just seems to be stuck in the past – either good, new stories aren’t being written at all, which I honestly kinda doubt, or more likely, the executives with the money simply would rather bet on franchises that have already shown their promise instead of take a chance and try something new. And sure, lots of people will go see this flick – myself included – simply because it is another Die Hard movie, but that’s not to say that we’ll enjoy it even marginally as much as we did its predecessors.
But Hollywood ignorance bitterness aside, my take on this flick if we factor out the fact that this is the epitome of an unnecessary sequel, second only to Indiana Jones 4: Damn, Harrison Ford Sure Is Getting Hold … it was an ok action movie – the film gets a C+ simply for riding on the coattails of the best action series of all time, but just based on its performance as an action film alone, I guess I could give it a B and still walk away with a smile on my face … because really, I didn’t leave the theater feeling robbed – it was an alright movie. It just shouldn’t have been a Die Hard movie.
Some highlights … Justin Long played a pretty entertaining (and unexpected) co-star to Bruce Willis and brought to the screen a lot of the humor that this film really needed to survive – I honestly don’t think that it would’ve been worth my $9.50 without him. Timothy Olyphant played alright as the bad guy, although I wasn’t entirely sold on his being the maniacal mastermind – he was crazy, but maybe not take over the country crazy! Hot Asian Bitch (I honestly didn’t catch her name…) was frankly annoying, but watching Bruce Willis beat the tar out of her was one of the funniest scenes I’d seen in a long time! And of course, you know that I just ate up Kevin Smith’s appearance as The Warlock, and even though by that point it seemed as out of place as the entire plotline itself, it was still great to see him up there on the screen with Bruce Willis because the man is a legend.
If only he’d been enough of a legend to convince them to stop at three Die Hards…
So I guess when compared on the random action movie scale, Live Free or Die Hard was an alright movie, but it just lacked that extra charm to be a true sequel because I honestly think that this was a series that rightfully ended back in 1995. Bruce Willis is getting older, the computer-based plotline seemed like a stretch, at least for this series that had previously survived on gunshots and explosions, and a lot of the more complicated fight scenes just seemed too far fetched even for Die Hard! I mean, John McClane is certainly one bad mother, but the man fights an F-15 in this flick and wins?! Good things usually come in threes and the hand was just clearly forced on Die Hard #4. I don’t even care that they gypped us of McClane’s famous “Yippe Kai Yee, Mother-f&#$!” – even the return of the best of lines couldn’t have saved this flick.
Bottom line: the franchise went out in a blaze of glory 12 years ago and with the utmost respect to the actors and the writers of the original trilogy, this was simply a sequel that should never have been made.
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