Z-View: McClane is Back, Baby!
I’ve enjoyed the entire “Die Hard” series. Don’t get me wrong, the first was a classic and created a whole new sub-genre of action movies. I also enjoyed both of the sequels. “Die Hard 2: Die Harder” wasn’t as good as the original, but it was still a whole lot of fun. “Die Hard with a Vengeance” again wasn’t as good as the original, but still entertained. I figured that “Live Free or Die Hard” would be about as good as the two sequels.Boy, was I wrong. It was better! [Spoilers below]
- The Good: Bruce Willis is John McClane. He’s a little older, but tougher than ever. Maggie Q. as Mai Lihn is pretty lethal. That is, she’s pretty and lethal. She puts a good butt-whooping on Willis. I loved how the movie sets up the characters, the situation and then BAM! it is off and running. The action sequences and stunts were great. Loved the wise-cracks. Really loved how McClane was relentless in telling Thomas Gabriel [Timothy Olyphant] that he was coming for him. I liked how they had a man of color in charge of the agency trying to catch the terrorists and there was never ANY question of his loyalty to our country. Kevin Smith’s scenes didn’t bother me, in fact I enjoyed them. Two scenes [mainly] were a bit over the top, but I accepted them… the jet scene where Willis jumps off the crumbling overpass onto the tail of the hovering fighter plane and then leaps to another section of overpass and slides aways from the explosion and the scene where Willis shoots through his own shoulder to kill the bad guy. Yeah. I know, but I ain’t complaining!
- The Bad: No complaints from me.
- The Ugly: The terrorist who fell into the grinder — but since this was PG-13 [which also didn’t bother me],the death wasn’t too ugly!
“Die Hard” Rating: 5 out of 5
“Die Hard 2: Die Harder” Rating: 4 out of 5
“Die Hard with a Vengeance” Rating: 4 out of 5
“Live Free or Die Hard” Rating: 4 out of 5
Was a MUCH better movie than I thought… only (and nothing to keep me from seeing it again) negative things I had was a bit of the language (which seems so prominent in movies these days to my chagrine) and a part at the end of the movie had me saying, “boy, that was pointless, huh?” lol… still awesome, but think the writer or director could have used a much better camera angle to show more… well, you’ll see and we’ll discuss if ya like… lol.
Great movie and highly enjoyable.