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Live Free or Die Hard

A good action movie, even though McClane was at times more of a superhero than a cop hero. That’s the thing with sequels, they always get bigger. The original was in a building, 2 was an airport, 3 was a city and this was the East Coast. If there’s a 5, look for Bruce Willis to save the whole country or world. Unless…someone comes up with a cool idea to return to the franchise’s roots. Die Hard in a mansion!

I liked the first action sequence in the apartment, it felt like an homage to the original flick, to the original action-in-a-confined-space idea.

• Little thing

- In the first half, when McLane drove the cop car from the tunnel into the helicopter, it would’ve worked much better had we first seen the “ramp” as McLane got into the car…because it felt really stupid for him to drive with some intention and then seemingly figure out the hail-mary at the last second.

- Then this sequence totally dropped the ball when the bad guy who jumped from the chopper looked into the smashed cop car and told the chief bad guy that McLane was toast. But he was moments earlier shooting at the car with a scope-rifle so how did he not see McLane jump? And even if he didn’t see that, why did he say with any certainty that McLane was a goner? Despite the car on fire, the outline of a body still would’ve been noticeable. And it didn’t add to the story for the bad guy to think McLane was dead at that moment…there were other times for that later.

- At the West Virginia power plant, McLane drove an SUV up a parking garage ramp and then slammed into the Asian villianess. It was a stretch that the vehicle went from the garage into the building (at least without her hearing it), but the real irritant for me was that McLane slammed the woman into the wall of the elevator shaft…and she lived! That extended sequence in the shaft was thus annoying and, moreso, unnecessary. With all the fireballs in the movie, that was one that could’ve been cut.

- Also at the plant, it sure seemed like Justin Long stopped or reversed the blackouts before they had to leave.

• The end

- While the fighter jet shooting at McLane in the truck was exciting, it lacked something important to maintain the viewer’s emotional connection- the bad guy. Though it was the bad guy who put the jet on McLane’s tail, a confrontation this late in the story must involve the principals. Otherwise, it’s the kind of scene that must be earlier in the movie.

- The finale where McClane shot through his shoulder to kill the bad guy, while a cool moment, needed to be a bit more dramatic and played out. The original pulled off the climax in a better way.

Die Hard 12: Spoof from the old Ben Stiller Show.

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