Watched this last night and resolved to post my two-penneth.
I thought it was enjoyable enough, but lacked any of the suspense, thrill or excitement of any of the previous three.
L2R said:
you knew all the terrorists by their looks and voices and when they died, the character that you could identify died.
whereas this is a bunch of black coats falling. very impersonal. very inhumane. a very total and revolting glorification of violence. the bad guy's motivation was terrible. talk about one dimensional character in polished frame. part of the pleasure of previous films was the fantastic bad guys. this guy was far too young to be so disgruntled and malicious, and capable.
This is very true and became obvious about a quarter of the way through. Whoever the main bad guy was (I can't be bothered to look up his name), he lacks the gravitas and style of Alan Rickman or Jeremy Irons, or even William Sadler.
But bad guys only make up half the counterweight when dealing with action heroes like John McClane or Harry Callahan. For the action-hero film to be truly balanced, there has to be enough supporting characters (read: conflicting egos) that can flimsily stand in his way with their "pencil-pushing bureaucracies" and "by-the-book" arse-hollery, before being won over by his man-of-the-people, blunt-force, everyman, salt-of-the-earth, working-class, knuckle-dragging simplicity. And there was nobody who provided that. There was no Carmine Lorenzo, there was no Al Powell, there was no... wait for it... Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson! Nobody who even gave the slightest bit of friction or interest. The Feds did nothing, the NSA guys had two lines in the film (poor Mr Tuvok) and provided no real twists. And the programmer guy... well, he pretty much hero-worshipped McClane with the occasional funny line. He ain't no Zeus Carver.
Oh, and yes, the motivation of the bad guy was a very politically-correct decision. Call me old fashioned, but goddamit... when I see a Die Hard movie, I want bad guys with foreign accents, hammy characterisation, the faint suggestion of homosexuality or sexual deviance... and if at all possible, enough facial hair to permit copious moustache-twirling.
The "misguided patriot" character is a cop-out.
the computer effects have taken much of the soul of the series away and the director relied far too heavily on it. he also took his action shot sweeping camera movement lesson directly from other pathetic blockbusters which i refuse to pay to see. movement does not equate to excitement. it's a fucking pathetic tool used to dress up bland content.
Maybe. I was quite impressed with some of the camera work, but I agree that there was little soul in the film. But here's an idea... perhaps it isn't the use of computers, as much as it was the use of a
storyline about computers. The first three always had a feel of claustrophobia or of being trapped - either in a building, in an airport or being at the beck and call of Jeremy Irons' pill-popping, twitchy baddie. Again, the film had none of that... just McClane going wherever he wanted to in order to stop a national crisis, rather than a personal and localised one.
In this case, I thoroughly enjoy the first and third installments. the second and fourth are barely worth watching once.
Sort of agree... although the second one had it's moments.
Either way, I think this film probably supports a general feeling about the Die Hard franchise... No John McTiernan? Don't bother.
2 1/2 stars.
