Pnyin - Willis resurrects `Die Hard'

ENTERTAINMENT / Review






Willis resurrects `Die Hard'

(AP)
Updated: 2007-06-26 13:51


"Live Free or Die Hard" is the sort of movie you approach like last
year's "Basic Instinct 2" or "Rocky Balboa."

You go in expecting the worst and figure you'll at least get some laughs
out of seeing an aging protagonist embarrassingly trying to reclaim old
glory.

Luckily for Bruce Willis and the audience, his die-hard cop still has a
lot of yippee-ki-yay in him, nearly 20 years after the first "Die Hard."

This fourth installment in the franchise, the first since 1995's "Die
Hard With a Vengeance," is the sort of generally welcome surprise that
"Rocky Balboa" turned out to be, a reacquaintance with an old friend you
didn't think you would like anymore, but do.

Let's be clear. "Live Free or Die Hard" is silly, outlandish and
painfully implausible, and it grows more so as director Len Wiseman revs
up the climactic action sequences to preposterous extremes.

Yet for a pure summer power trip, it's a decent throwback to the
pure-brawn heyday of Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, an agreeable
respite from today's cartoonlike ballets of computer-generated action.

This time out, Willis' John McClane still wisecracks, but he's much more
a stoic hard case than the yammering clown of earlier years. Divorced and
disillusioned, McClane still takes his job as a New York City detective
seriously, and he does it well.

One night, while staking out his college-age daughter, Lucy (Mary
Elizabeth Winstead), to make sure her date keeps his hands to himself,
McClane is dispatched to pick up a computer hacker and deliver him to the
FBI in Washington for questioning.

Computer geek Matt Farrell (Justin Long) is one of many digital wizards
the feds want to question after the bureau's cyber-security division is
hacked.

Moments after McClane shows up at Matt's door, assassins bombard the
apartment with gunfire, setting off a long July Fourth weekend for the
cop and the hacker as they chase around trying to stay ahead of the bad
guys and figure out who's behind a computer incursion that cripples the
nation.

Traffic signals go berserk, financial markets crash, airplanes are
grounded, electricity is cut and federal buildings are evacuated because
of false anthrax alarms.

With all their equipment and digital know-how, the feds, led by FBI guy
Bowman (Cliff Curtis), are virtually hapless in tracking down the
mastermind, bitter security expert Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant).

So of course, it's left to McClane, an analog dinosaur who barely grasps
the concept of cell phones, to hunt the man down, aided by sidekick
Farrell.

Ridiculous as the action scenes are, the early ones are a clever,
thrilling blend of digital imagery and old-fashioned muscle. The first
two-thirds of the movie builds up enough good will that viewers may play
along when director Wiseman (the "Underworld" movies) goes off the deep
end with some insanely excessive stunts in the final act.

Among the highlights is a death-match between bruiser McClane and
Gabriel's lover and accomplice (Maggie Q), a lethal martial-arts fighter.

With McClane taking blows that should leave him for dead, their duel
accentuates the impossible levels to which the filmmakers take their
die-hard notion. McClane is less a human than an unstoppable,
"Terminator"-style cyborg, continually bouncing back with another punch
and a new joke.

Willis shows nothing he hasn't shown a dozen times before, but he does it
all well, delivering steely stares, writhing in pain and complaining in
muttered soliloquy about his lot in life.

He and Long develop a nice father-son camaraderie through their
adventures, while Winstead fills in for the absent Bonnie Bedelia,
McClane's wife from the first two movies, playing the spunky damsel
inevitably drawn into the peril.

Filmmaker Kevin Smith adds an amusing bit part as a distrustful computer
nerd holed up in a "command center" in his mom's basement.

While Olyphant is adequate as the ruthless, calculating Gabriel, he
suffers a similar fate as William Sadler and Jeremy Irons, the villains
of the second and third "Die Hard" flicks: Namely, that no one seems like
a truly worthy opponent for McClane after the deliciously flamboyant
performance of bad guy Alan Rickman in the original "Die Hard."

"Live Free or Die Hard," a 20th Century Fox release, is rated PG-13 for
intense sequences of violence and action, language and a brief sexual
situation. Running time: 130 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.












Top Entertaiment News




� Tom Sizemore gets 16-month sentence

� World awaits Paris Hilton's return

� McCartney to play L.A. record store Wednesday

� Bullock goes to Church for romantic comedy

� Cameron Diaz apologizes for Maoist bag





Today's Top News




� Tougher penalty sought for emergency cover-ups

� New drugs prompt legal relook

� Hu stresses scientific development

� BBC reporter shown in 'bomb belt'

� Inflation could lead to rate hike - Central bank chief





Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours








Learn Chinese, Chinese Online Class, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing, Travel to Tibet