On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 1/22 |
Amanda Jones |
One of my favorite action movies ever. Flawed, yes. But so actiony. |
| 18/48 |
Kim Hollis |
This movie gave me the same lovin' feeling that the original Die Hard did. A blast. |
| 26/33 |
John Seal |
Absurd but entertaining |
| 31/214 |
Max Braden |
McClane seems a little more dumbed down than in the previous films, but the fights in this one are great, and Long is funny. |
| 31/46 |
Les Winan |
To paraphrase Dennis Green: it is what we thought it was. |
| 37/50 |
Michael Bentley |
Has little of the tension, excitement, or thrills of the original. |
The three Die Hard movies have earned almost $750 million in worldwide receipts. Those titles inflation adjust to $1.14 billion worth of box office. Over the past dozen years, innumerable attempts have been to re-start the franchise. The concerns have been obvious. How many times can the same guy go through an escalating number of terrorist attacks without losing audiences? Heck, one of the movies even made this joke...and not the most recent one. There is also the issue of Bruce Willis’s advancing age. If he’s too old for Demi Moore, doesn’t it stand to reason that he’s too old for North American movie-going audiences as well?
Live Free Or Die Hard is the film facing the tricky proposition of overcoming these obstacles. Former supercop John McClane has moved on from the police force and is now working for the Department of Homeland Security. During the routine escort of a prisoner to a law enforcement facility, McClane once again finds himself stepping in it. An elite group of cyber-terrorists has infiltrated the government’s computer infrastructure, thereby gaining access to all sorts of ways to create chaos. Deadwood sheriff Timothy Olyphant leads a group of binary no-good-niks as they attempt to cripple the day-to-day operations of this country, forcing the government to acquiesce to their demands.
While trying to save the day, McClane is not alone. As was the case in Die Hard with a Vengeance and, to a lesser degree, the original Die Hard, McClane has a buddy. The very man he was taking to jail, Matt Foster (Apple aficionado Justin Long), is every bit as good at the trade as the men they are trying to stop. So, our hero is once again forced to take on a partner as the unlikely allies attempt to save America.
The plot here was originally a stand-alone screenplay entitled WorldWar3.com, but Fox snatched up the rights to the idea in order to convert it to Die Hard-ness. Even this process has taken years to complete, making Die Hard’s return the most surprising in recent memory...or at least it had been before Indiana Jones 4 finally got the greenlight. Given the ubiquitous nature of the Die Hard franchise as well as the financial accomplishments of the prior three films, it is difficult to envision this release as anything other than a blockbuster. Having said that, the fact that an entire generation of MySpace users were roughly eight-years-old when the last film in the franchise was released, there exists the possibility that this movie is a blueprint example of too little, too late. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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