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Live Free or Die Hard
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Bruce Willis,
Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Mary Elizabeth
Winstead |
| MPAA Rated: |
PG-13 |
| Released By: |
20th Century Fox |
| Web Site: |
www.livefreeordiehard.com |
| Kiddie Movie: |
Keep it at least
10 and above. |
| Date Movie: |
If she likes
action flicks. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
Lucy gets felt up,
but she doesn't really want it. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
In keeping with
PG-13 you don't really see the kill-shot, but you know it's
there. |
| Action: |
It's a "Die Hard"
film. Duh. |
| Laughs: |
Tons and tons of
them. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
I did really enjoy
John and Matt in the basement of Warlock (Kevin Smith at his
best). |
| Memorable
Quote: |
Too many to list. |
| Directed By: |
Len Wiseman |
| Produced By: |
Michael Fottrell |
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Live Free or Die Hard
A Movie Review |
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One of my favoritist action movies of all time is "Die
Hard." Another of my favorite action movies is "Die Hard 2."
I have never seen "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" so I can’t
comment about its place in my action movie list, but when I
saw the initial trailers for "Live Free or Die Hard" I was a
little worried, wondering if it could even come close to the
original, or even #2. And when I heard it was going to be
rated PG-13, well, I really became nervous, but then I
remembered something about PG-13 – You can kill a ton of
people as long as you really don’t show the final killing of
a ton of people, and you can have action all you want. What
you can’t have is quality nudity, and forget about saying
the line "Yippie Kay-Ay motherfucker!", (I forgot you can
get away with one "fuck" but that "mother" portion is
always a
deal-breaker I’m told), but you can still say "shit" a lot.
In the end I didn’t miss the f-bombs as much as I thought I
might, and the "Die Hard" franchise was never about nudity,
so I didn’t miss that as well. And before I tell you how
this one ranks in my "Die Hard" list, here’s a quick snippet
of the story…
John McClane (Bruce Willis) is an older but not so
gentler detective now, mostly worried about the well-being
of his daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), keeping her
away from dudes who only want to get in her pants. We
quickly find that they have a true love-hate relationship.
Matt Farrell (Justin Long) is a computer hacker who
unknowingly gives a piece of hacker code to the smoking hot
Mai Lihn (Maggie Q), who is working for Thomas Gabriel
(Timothy Olyphant) who is looking to cripple the United
States via computers. When there is a breach of the FBI’s
computer system the feds look to round up the top 1000
hackers to question them, and low and behold John is asked
to pick up Matt. John is at Matt’s pad, men start trying to
kill Matt, and John gets Matt out alive, while taking out
most of the team of bad guys.
Now good old Gabriel starts his plan in action, first
crippling the transportation grid around the country, then
the financial stuff, and all hell is breaking loose as the
bad guys overtake the TV airwaves, alerting the nation that
more bad stuff is coming. This is all fine and swell except we
know John McClane is still out there, and this time actually needing the
computer nerd in Matt, and true to "Die Hard" form he has
one official dude, this time an FBI guy, who he finds he can trust.
And so a "Die Hard" movie plays out where the bad guys
are doing the damndest to kill McClane and Farrell, Gabriel
and the rest of his bad guys have a way over-the-top plan
to, of course, make a lot of dough while reeking havoc on
others, or in this case the entire United States, and
someone in the McClane family will be in peril, this time
it’s Lucy’s turn.
Story aside is the movie any good? Hell yea. I loved most
of it, with only one scene that was too over-the-top, even
for me. The story feeds into our need yet fear of computers,
you get two hours of pretty much non-stop action, and even
though Thomas Gabriel wasn’t nearly as good a villain (Mai
Lihn should have been the mastermind – would have worked
just a tad better I think), there’s tons of gunfire,
chasing, cars flying, and just as important, John McClane’s
verbal arsenal of whit and wisdom has never been better.
Pretty much if you go into this film expecting a "Die
Hard" movie and not a crappy sequel, you will get what you
pay for. Dropping it down to PG-13 didn’t really ruin much,
hell, you even get some feeling up of Lucy, and a well-placed
gun-shot sound lets enough of John McClane’s now infamous "Yippie
Kay-Ay motherfucker!" to be said. The folks in the theater I
saw the movie at seemed to really enjoy it, and I would
almost give it 5 stars out of 5 except as much as I was able
to buy all of the other action in the movie, even I couldn’t
get past the "way-to-over-the-top"ness of the jet fighter
shooting at the semi John was driving scene. With that "Live
Free or Die Hard" is a solid 4 ½ stars out of 5, leaving it,
for me, right between "Die Hard" and Die Hard 2." There is
probably no doubt that this will be a movie that when I come
across it on cable, well, I’m stuck there for the duration.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |
