As one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, this film already had an uphill battle to live up to expectations. After more than one viewing, I have come to rather like it. The Die Hard films have been gradually increasing in scope with each entry, and this is no exception. Also with each entry, they inherit more aspects of a disaster film. And while the pitch for the story may sound like a cool idea to drop a character like John McClane into, the execution of the script is a bit of cookie cutter action cliche. It ties together the action set pieces and gives the characters enough interesting interaction to give the cast something to work with. In the end, we get an action movie that is outstanding in parts and adequate in other parts (and a bit too over-the-top in other bits). I’m not sure where I place it amongst the second and third films in order of preference. Perhaps at some time down the line I’ll figure out how I’d rank them. Many fans have been loudly complaining about the fact that this film was made as a PG-13 to a franchise that has always been heavily R rated. Frankly, I’m one of the only fans that’s happy about this. I have no problem with them having to cut back on the language, particularly after Dennis Franz’s insufferably annoying character from Die Hard 2. While there might not be as much gory violence as a couple of the previous films had, it’s not noticeably missing in any way. This film is not short on violence, and the action never feels restrained. Frankly, I think the PG-13 approach was a good move, and possibly helped me like the movie better.

Writing: There’s nothing about the plotting worth particularly noting. It has a few clever moments, but it otherwise by-the-numbers. We get a little bit of interesting character insight, but that’s only helped along by the rich history of the character to draw from over the years. It’s the cast and production that help take up the slack of the shortcomings in the screenplay. Add to that some action sequences that are just too over-the-top (why is it that the dumbest of action scenes often involve highway interchanges?).

Production: Here is a particular strong aspect of the movie. There are some gorgeous action sequences, including some first rate stunt work. Camera work is dynamic and very well done. Sound is aggressive and often interesting in the mix. Director Len Wiseman (of the Underworld films) clearly has a talent for producing slick action scenes. The films themselves are getting progressively better. Some day he’ll get the opportunity to work with a fantastic script and prove what he can really accomplish. One weak point in this film is editing, both in the details and the overall flow. While the pacing may work OK, the film has trouble establishing the passing of time in general or acknowledging the outside world enough as it moves forward past the nice establishing material in the first half of the movie. Then there’s way too many ADR lines slapped over visuals they clearly don’t line up with, including a few lines of dialog squeezed into places they could fit. Not completely amateur, but hardly an editing job worthy of the production level. Overall, it’s the stunt, set design, location and camera teams that deserve the highest praise.

Cast: This film wouldn’t work half as well if it wasn’t John McClane at the center of the action. I love the “blunt instrument” aspect to his character. He’s somebody who can finally put all this action movie martial arts fad crap in its place. When a character gets too showy with all their acrobatics or martial arts, you can count on McClane to use the simple, brutal method to best them. I’ll take a good street fighter in an action movie over somebody doing wire-work idiocy any day of the week. All this is to say that Bruce Willis is the grounding force of the film. He can take the completely ridiculous aspects of the story or production and somehow make them at least entertaining. I don’t mind checking my brain at the door, but it’s often times hard to completely ignore action material that’s too fake. Willis really helps keep me from caring about how goofy much of it is. Justin Long is a fun addition to the mix. He’s another actor brining more to the character than it really deserves. Him and Willis play off each other remarkably well. Timothy Olyphant is an underrated actor, and he gets to imbue his character with a nice sense of intelligence and sociopathic insanity. Mary Elizabeth Winstead does a nice job as McClane’s daughter, Lucy. Having his daughter as a college student is a fun little tidbit for the franchise, nicely acknowledging the age of the characters by this point. She’s come a long way from the little girl seen in the first film. Winstead is a rising star worth keeping an eye on. She’s been very good in her numerous recent films, and has started branching out from her horror genre leading roles to supporting roles in rather high profile productions. I look forward to seeing her get more high profile roles.

Music: Director Len Wiseman brings along composer Marco Beltrami from their previous collaboration on Underworld Evolution. While this isn’t Beltrami’s greatest score, it’s still a very good action score. Beltrami has gotten a surprising number of jobs scoring later entries in a franchise he didn’t previously work on (Terminator 3, Underworld Evolution, Blade II, etc) or doing remakes (The Omen) where he needs to somehow work in style or reference to previous work. He often ends up working in nice little stylistic or thematic references to the original films, but taking them in his own direction. This is no exception. In a handful of moments, Beltrami does nice little musical quotes of the late composer Michael Kamen’s work on the previous Die Hard films. Kamen’s work on the Die Hard films was nothing great or groundbreaking. In fact, the more I listen to the score, the more I can hear of Kamen’s textures and instrumentation from the previous Die Hard films. It’s really quite subtle and detailed.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 3:18 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.