In 1993's The Last Action Hero, a young boy magically enters the world of an action movie staring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold learns that he is in fact a hero in an action movie, and as such certain conventions must always apply-the most important being that he will never die no matter how ridiculous the situations he finds himself in. Watching the newest Die Hard movie, I found myself thinking back to this movie and that particular element. In one scene in Live Free or Die Hard John McClane is driving a car at full speed down a tunnel, planning to drive it into a waiting helicopter. Just before jumping out, he mumbles "This is probably a bad idea," then jumps out. Sure enough, the plan works, and McClane just laughs to himself. It seems that McClane has finally discovered that he is in a movie as well, and as such he doesn't take anything seriously anymore. He can't die, so he may as well create the most preposterous situations imaginable for himself. The sense of urgency or dread that something terrible might happen no matter how hard McClane tries to avert it found in previous installments is gone, replaced with simply an attempt to one up the previous stunts.Very few franchises are consistently good beyond the first film, but I'd place the Die Hard trilogy in that rare camp in which each movie is pretty damn good. Sure Die Hard 2 was a bit silly, but it generally worked. Die Hard With a Vengeance, however, is an unqualified great sequel, recapturing much of what made the original so good while attempting to do something different. That Live Free falls so short of the mark is made all the more unpleasant because of how strong the track record was for this franchise. I think part of what's so wrong with this film is that the plot is a great idea for an action film, but not a great idea for a Die Hard film. The premise is that a group of terrorists unleash a blackout on America, disrupting lights, computers, TV, everything. It'd probably work as a fun James Bond film, or maybe even as a season of 24. But Die Hard always had a more personal, intimate element to the story, and here McClane feels like he was transplanted into the story instead of being an integral part of it.
Speaking of McClane, Bruce Willis doesn't seem to be particularly enjoying himself this time around. McClane starts the movie off stalking his now grown up daughter, and only goes downhill from there. Whereas McClane used to be his enemy's equal, here he is reduced to a manchild, incapable of understanding what is going on around him. Indeed, we at times are left wondering if all McClane's previous adventures haven't rendered him brain damaged. Take, for example, a scene in which he is talking to a villain over a webcam. McClane puts his hand in front of the webcam when he wants to tell his partner something private, and is mocked when the villain tells him that covering the webcam doesn't mute the sound. Scenes like this are rampant in the film, and only serve to make us laugh at McClane, not with him. But hey, as long as a gun and the occassional vehicle will get the job done, why bother making him into anything resembling an intelligent human being?
Perhaps the biggest laugh in the film is one that must have made the filmmakers pale in dread. In any action franchise, the latest installment is only as good as your villain. So when an audience laughs at your villain's attempts at being menacing, you must realize you have a turkey on your hands. Timothy Olyphant seems like a good villain choice, but looks can be deceiving. In the scene where McClane and the villain, Thomas Gabriel, talk for the first time, Gabriel has just learned that someone he cares about has died. Looking visibly shaken, perhaps near tears, he shouts "You have no idea who I am or what I'm capable of!" Instead of coming across as menacing, he instead resembles a child whining at his parents after they've punished him for hitting his little brother. Add to this the information we learn about him throughout the film (he once worked for the government and threw a hissyfit when no one would listen to his report that someone could bring the country down via the same methods he eventually uses), and you have arguably one of the worst villains in recent film history.
The other new additions to the cast are Justin Long as a hacker, Kevin Smith (yes, that Kevin Smith) as Long's buddy Warlock, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy McClane. Long is supposed to be the comic relief, but films this bad don't need comic relief, they are their own comic relief, so he's essentially a nothing element (made all the more apparent by the fact that we never get a reason why the bad guys want him dead so badly, or why the government care if he lives once they realize he has nothing to do with the attacks). Smith is cute as a grown man living in his mother's basement, but then again, cute and Die Hard are a hard mixture to swallow. Winstead, however, seems to be the only one who ever watched a Die Hard movie. She is perhaps the most interesting character in the film, and the least pitiable damsel in distress ever. If her father didn't show up to save her, she'd probably just save herself. Maybe a movie about her next time would be better than an aging, brain damaged John McClane.
There's really nothing here to recommend. The plot is poorly executed to the point of never feeling any tension. The characters are almost unanimously awful. And the PG-13 rating makes you realize how watered down it all is. I don't know that a string or profanities or more violent death scenes would have helped, but at least it might have made this feel a bit more like a Die Hard. In a summer of awful sequels, Live Free or Die Hard fights tooth and nails to stand atop a mountain of crap as the worst of the bunch.
