Live Free or Die Hard [Blu-ray]
Twelve years after Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third and previous film in the Die Hard franchise, Live Free or Die Hard finds John McClane (Bruce Willis) a few years older, not any happier, and just as kick-ass as ever. Right after he has a fight with his college-age daughter (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a call comes in to pick up a hacker (Justin Long, a.k.a. the “Apple guy”) who might help the FBI learn something about a brief security blip in their systems. Now any Die Hard fan knows that this is when the assassins with foreign accents and high-powered weaponry show up, telling McClane that once again he’s stumbled into an assignment that’s anything but routine. Once that wreckage has cleared, it is revealed that the hacker is only one of many hackers who are being targeted for extermination after they helped set up a “fire sale,” a three-pronged cyberattack designed to bring down the entire country by crippling its transportation, finances, and utilities. That plan is now being put into action by a mysterious team (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood, and Maggie Q, Mission: Impossible 3) that seems to be operating under the government’s noses.
Live Free or Die Hard uses some of the cat-and-mouse elements of Die Hard with a Vengeance along with some of the pick-’em-off-one-by-one elements of the now-classic original movie. And it’s the most consistently enjoyable installment of the franchise since the original, with eye-popping stunts (directed by Len Wiseman of the Underworld franchise), good humor, and Willis’s ability to toss off a quip while barely alive. There was some controversy over the film’s PG-13 rating–there might be less blood than usual, and McClane’s famous tag line is somewhat obscured–but there’s still has plenty of action and a high body count. Yippee-ki-ay! –David Horiuchi
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Customer Review: BRUCE WILLIS FOREVER! NOW SUE ME
I’m a Bruce Willis fan and unashamed about it. I’ve enjoyed looking at his performances ever since he first tussled with Cybil Shepard in MOONLIGHTING. Seen all his movies, even that goofy musical he did with (of all people Joe Mantegna. Talk about self-indulgent! But so what. Self-depreciating’s more like it. And don’t you remember when, a few years ago, some movement hag pretending to be a movie critic objected to his masculine “smirk.” His reply? I paraphrase: “Sorry, lady. That’s the way I look.” Truly, the man.
All right, his career’s had its ups and downs. Fortunately, along came Tarrentino with the role of a lifetime of the Punchy boxer with more luck than sense, and Willis found his ‘type;’ that is, the type he could play, more or less safely, for the next decade or so, that of the bruised and battered old cop. It’s his NYPD persona. And granted its played as well by Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler in the LAW & ORDER Franchise, Special, etc. And Meloni is good at it, no doubt. But Willis who began on the small screen, is now the certified big screen star. Anyway, here he is in a hi-budget action flick of first rank, with just enough plot to justify its baroque violence, and length. (It’s about one six-pak in length.)
This is, for want of a better word, a Cyber-Punk adventure flick with MATRIX overtones and style elements. But tht’s mostly greenish-blackish lighting in the opening segments, and a few ‘quotes’ from MATRIX, like the hollow knock on the hacker’s door at night. But, whereas MATRIX took place mostly in the invisible land behind computer-generated appearances (the MAT RIX itself of Reality) DIE HARD doesn’t do that. It’s superficial in that it sticks with the realit y around (ourselves) and all the characters, and works within it to solve a magnificent computer hold-up scheme, organized and manipulated by a super-clever A-hole Hacker and his Eurasian Kung-Fu Killer chick. Only mentioning this because if you haven’t seen it, you shouldn’t be scared off by anything in the plot. It’ all plausible. Nothing spooky or hokey.
Early on, Willis establishes himself as the “dad” of the story; that’s the character he plays in t his series: a harried, worried scarred and petulent NYPD cop, divorced and living out of his squad car, who has an attractive but bitchy Mall Rat daughter who is anxious to test her sexual mettle. He spends time stalking her and scaring off her would-be boy-friends. One night, while he’s doing same, he’s instructed to find and ‘bring in’ a very important hacker (Justin Long). He obeys orders and finds the pale-faced, black-haired keyboard junkie in his electronically-cluttered loft. What neither he nor the kid now is that simultaneously there’s a couple of pro assassin-types set to snuff the kid. They attack and the action begins. And, its well done, and followed by a number of other scens of differing type and increasing complexity which are in and of themselves, well done to say the least.
Long plays the young hacker as an immature but fundamen tally decent kid; smart, but insecure. As Willis/McLane drags him from city to city and crisis to crisis, the kid though reluctant, goes from scarcely bearable to acceptable, and they form a kind of bond. And then i becomes a BATMAN & ROBIN (or buddy) movie, but without tights, capes and super gadgets. We’ve seen it before: sometimes as a War movie in which a callow kid learns how to be a man on the battlefield under the tutelage of a seasoned warrior. Here it works out fine. Neither soupy or kitch.
The first great action scene is a kind of ballet of crashing cars that takes place in a traffic tunnel under mid-town DC, where McL and the Kid — who are being chased and shot at from above by a helicopter — find temporary helter. Basically two stunts, but awsome!
The next great action sequence takes place in a kind of Fed-Opeated/owned Computer Info Storage facility. Too complex to explain. Big. Multi-stories and filled with metal stairways, elevator shafts and conduits, ducts and cables. Perfect set for a lot of fast and dangerous action that terminates in a final stunt in an SUV hanging by a cable in an elevator shaft. There’s Miss Siagon in a TRINITY latex outfit — stilletos and pistols — who’s trying very hard to kill McLane. The escape reminds one of the escap from the lab truck hanging over he edge of the cliff in JURASSIC PARK. Beautiful action sequence. Double Wheu!!
And then, toward the end, Willis out-does (or tries to) Arnold S when he jumps on a low-flying jet fighter and… Well, you have to see it for yourself. It may not be believable, but it sure is while you watch.
Not going to give anything away. Only say this: its a very interesting multi-ethnic-looking movie, with lots of new or at least unfamiliar actors with very interesting faces. The location work is very realistic indeed, and the automobile crash ballet is fast, original and so dangerous looking you wonder the actors dared to appear in the scenes.
What more can one say? Everything is not Kirkegaaard and High Math. Sometimes you’ve got to loosen your belt and let yourself have some fun. This is as much fun as a good football game. Or (for me) maybe more.
Best line in the movie? “You’re gonna tell me what I need to know or I’m gonna beat you to death in your own house.”
Customer Review: Mac owners! Digital copy does not work on Mac
Bought the DVD w/the included digital copy only to find out that the digital copy cannot be downloaded to a Mac computer (work only on Window computers). I wished they had put it clearly in the description when you buy the DVD.
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Ratatouille [Blu-ray] One key point: if you can get over the natural gag reflex of seeing hundreds of rodents swarming over a restaurant kitchen, you will be free to enjoy the glory of Ratatouille, a delectable Pixar hit. Our hero is Remy, a French rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt) with a cultivated palate, who rises from his humble beginnings to become head chef at a Paris restaurant. How this happens is the stuff of Pixar magic, that ineffable blend of headlong comedy, seamless technology, and wonder (in the latter department, this movie’s views of nighttime Paris are on a par with French cinema at its most lyrical). Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles) doesn’t quite keep all his spinning plates in the air, but the gags are great and the animation amazingly expressive–Remy’s shrugs and nods are nimbler than many flesh-and-blood actors can manage. Refreshingly, the movie’s characters aren’t celebrity-reliant, with the most recognizable voice coming from Peter O’Toole’s snide food critic. (This fellow provides the film’s sole sour note–an oddly pointed slap at critics, those craven souls who have done nothing but rave about Pixar’s movies over the years.) Brad Bird’s style is more quick-hit and less resonant than the approach of Pixar honcho John Lasseter, but it’s hard to complain about a movie that cooks up such bountiful pleasure. –Robert Horton 
