Die Hard 4.0 film review

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DIE HARD 4.0

It's been twelve years since Bruce Willis last donned a white vest and yelled Yippee-Kay-Ay before dispatching Jeremy Irons in Die Hard With a Vengeance. Like Sylvester Stallone earlier this year with Rocky 6, Willis has taken the risky decision to bring his most famous series back to life. The good news is that (again like Stallone) he's made a decent fist of it - long time fans won't be disappointed and the film's commercial prospects look secure.

There are two ways of looking at Willis' latest effort: firstly as a straightforward action film and secondly as a Die Hard film. On the first count it's a runaway success: the notable lack of CGI and very high stunt factor give the film a satisfying old-fashioned feel. As a Die Hard film, it understandably never reaches the heights of the first film in the series but nevertheless never becomes as cheesy or predictable as Renny Harlin's 1990 sequel.

There's a lot of fun to be had in Die Hard 4.0 (known as Live Free or Die Hard in the US) - and it's fun that starts with Bruce Willis. His McClane is still pounding the streets, but his daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is all grown up and his hair has all gone. Mark Bomback's script pokes plenty of fun at McClane/Willis' advancing years and it's refreshing to see a bona fide Hollywood superstar not taking himself too seriously - a trick that Willis has seemingly effortlessly managed for over twenty years.

While the characterisation is full of zing, the plot is a little too familiar and predictable. Another baddie (this time evil computer expert Timothy Olyphant) is threatening to shut down America's power supplies due to a beef with his former employers, the CIA. Only one man can stop him, and McClane is aided (and sometimes hindered) by a young computer hacker (Justin Long) who enlists the help of computer guru Kevin Smith (of Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob fame) to stop the potential carnage.

The familiarity of the plot may be due to the fact that the film runs almost like a feature-length version of Kiefer Sutherland's TV series 24, but it's also arguable that the Die Hard series created this format - a baddie in a secret location who must be stopped over the course of one day, in this instance the fourth of July.