We watched a couple of films this weekend. The Bourne Ultimatum and Die Hard 4.0. I decided to do a review of both films.
– The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) – Fantastic, gripping, gritty, thrilling.
– Die Hard 4.0 (Live Free or Die Hard) 2007 – Utterly crap.
Now, if you’re going to watch any of the Die Hard movies you need to stick your brain in neutral. I was aware of this before watching the movie but seriously – this is so over the top it’s unreal. The first half of the movie isn’t too bad but, after the tunnel chase scene, it all goes insane. Sruff blows up, yes, but Bruce Willis seems to jump, avoid and dodge absolutely everything that’s thrown at him. Then, as he jumps out of the huge truck that had magically avoided the obviously-computer-generated F35 jet (yes, a truck, a big, long, slow, truck), he landed ONTO the plane. Yes, he jumps OUT of a truck and ONTO a plane. Then, as the plane wobbles around, he casually jumps off it again, slides down a broken bit of motorway (which conveniently didn’t have any other traffic on when the jet blew it to bits), and somehow manages to get back up as if nothing had happened.
Oh, and how about that bit where John McClane drove at full speed (in some 4×4 he found with the keys left in) through a multi-storey car-park only to somehow then be magically transported into the offices of the power plant, where he continued to drive at full speed towards the evil baddy lady….who he couldn’t see…because he was driving through offices… and I mean through offices.. doors, windows, desks etc etc.. Somehow though he managed to drive into her and miss his new pal – Matt Farrell – who was trying to reverse the work of the evil computer hacker.
Oh, and those “computer hackers” employed by the evil baddy weren’t exactly brilliant either. There they sat, in the back of the baddy truck (please try to ignore the fact that I keep saying “baddy” here, I’m not sure if it’s spelt “baddie”), ensuring that all the other hackers who’d contributed in someway towards the dismantling of the systems controlling our daily lives (traffic control, electric, phones etc etc), were killed off after doing their coding. Somehow they never realised that they too would be shot when they were surplus to requirements. Oh, durr..
Insane. If I’d watched this at the cinema I would’ve walked out right then. I’m well aware that the whole movie should be taken with a pinch of salt, but when it descends into utter fantasy I’m off!
I can safely say I’ve never seen anything as ridiculous as “Live Free or Die Hard”.