Review: Die Hard 4.0

AKA “Live Free or Die Hard”. Maverick cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back, a little older, world-weary, and possibly crankier. He is also having to contend with a teenage daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who is in that whole ‘dating’ period of her life (Bonnie Bedelia is once again AWOL, a shame), he’s been saddled with the piddly task of picking up computer hacker Justin Long and bringing him to FBI headquarters in Washington DC (headed by Cliff Curtis and Zeljko Ivanek) for his assistance in foiling the plans of cyber terrorist Timothy Olyphant (a disgruntled former FBI computer geek), and his chief arse-kicker Maggie Q. They’ve shut down the FBI’s computer system and are threatening to crash just about everything; Wall Street, traffic, pretty much the entire infrastructure. Call it the Cyber equivalent of doomsday, or the biggest damn blackout America has ever seen. So it’s up to Jack Bauer...er...John McClane...and his computer nerd accomplice...and the FBI...to save the day. Kevin Smith shows up as a master hacker buddy of Long’s.

Weak, unnecessary (wasn’t “Hostage” essentially the fourth “Die Hard” anyway? How about “16 Blocks”? Both are better films) 2007 Len Wiseman (the limp vampire action-horror hybrid “Underworld”) action film, the fourth in the popular “Die Hard” series. Despite Willis being stoically Willis (not as much fun as 1988 wise-cracking Willis) and some fun comic relief from Long, this bloated, shockingly unexciting film barely gets off the ground.

It starts out as a bit of derivative fun (the relationship between Willis and Long is a re-tread of “16 Blocks” and probably “Midnight Run”), but soon becomes tedious and uninvolving. Most of this is due to the plot, which is really not all that different from an episode of “24” (with co-star Ivanek having done similar duties on that show to the work he does here), and which might have indeed worked elsewhere, but as a “Die Hard” plot? What’s McClane doing taking on cyber terrorists? The juxtaposition of downloads and uploads with car crashes, gunfire and fighter planes, just doesn’t work. Furthermore, Olyphant, a terrific actor in the right role, isn’t acceptable as a “Die Hard” villain as written here. He was truly psycho opposite some geeky high schoolers in “The Girl Next Door” and made for an exceptional brooding hero on TV’s “Deadwood”, but he comes up looking like a yuppie wimp next to uber-macho Willis. Olyphant needs a protagonist either equal to his age, or younger, in order to really do his thing. He also gets bugger-all to do except get quietly annoyed when his plans are continually foiled, and stare intensely at a monitor or two. Maggie Q does well with what she’s given (she’s there to look hot, and really, really does that supremely well!), but Smith’s gag cameo is a joke that has been done well-enough before.

Sadly, the film doesn’t work as an action movie, either, probably obvious by the film’s M rating in Australia (What action movie gets an M rating in Australia post 2000? Very few, believe me, when the harsher MA rating is an option). Opening the action up to encompass an entire city as opposed to the confined spaces of the earlier films didn’t much work in “Die Hard With a Vengeance”, and further broadening the scope doesn’t help here, either. What action there is (aside from some nice kung-fu by sexy Maggie Q- hey, that rhymed!), is either of zero interest (who wants to see Willis in a car chase or ten?) or looks completely absurd, with the climactic sequence involving Willis, a fighter jet and a truck, being one of the most ridiculous action set-pieces I’ve ever seen (And remember, I loved “Con Air” and “Commando”!).

Scripted by Mark Bomback (“Unstoppable”, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”), this is supremely disappointing stuff, with the subsequent “A Good Day to Die Hard” only a slight improvement.

Rating: C