Live Free or Die Hard - Page 2

Lowered expectations probably helped. When the PG-13 verdict came down I was as bummed as anyone. But what the film lost in blood and fucks it made up for in impressive stunts and a fun performance from Willis. I was happy they didn't make McClane some sort of goofball as Riggs and Murtaugh had become in their 4th film.

This movie sucking has nothing to do with it somehow being a sub-par entry in the Die Hard series. Call it Die Hard or Generic Action Flick or Mac Guy Project, the movie is still shit from top to bottom. The action is lame, the plot insulting, and the performances phoned in. What are we supposed to be enjoying?

I understand why they put Bruce Willis in it and called it a Die Hard flick, that's how it paid the bills. Let's be honest, if this same movie starred Colin Farrell and was called Pipeline, it would've opened to the tune of $8mil and fizzled out from there.

Was it "goofball" when they were all tied up and the house set ablaze? Was it "goofball" when Murtaugh saved lives by taking off his pants? Was it "goofball" when Leo was almost eaten by a shark?

Nothing "goofball" about Leo's recollections of his childhood pet frog. Heartfelt.

Someone brought up fan fiction, and that's what it feels like. The lack of understanding of what made McClane McClane is insulting.

As much of a misfire as the last Indiana Jones was, at least they somewhat got the character.

Other than not dropping lots of F-bombs, what did they specifically not get? McClane has essentially been in varrying states of flux through all the films. His personality at the start of 4 seems about in line with where he found himself at the end of 3.

I can't believe all the hate for "Die Hard 2." It's the one with a guy who gets an icicle jabbed in his eyeball. And it's got Dennis Franz. And naked kung fu.

Oh yeah, I'm shocked by how many people don't consider DIE HARDER to be the 2nd best. Because it is.

Why? Live Free or Die Hard didn't feel like a Die Hard movie to me. Bruce Willis has done plenty of action flicks that weren't in the Die Hard series and they didn't feel like Die Hard movies. This just so happens to be one of them. Only thing is that they slapped the Die Hard title onto it.

Edited to add that Die Hard 2 is great. What's wrong with you people?

He's a surly cop who suddenly finds himself battling a group of terrorists who are really just in it for the money.

If it wasn't released as a DIE HARD film then all anybody would be saying is "Why didn't they just make this DIE HARD 4?"

I totally second that. In fact, it's one of the better action films of the 90's. I enjoyed Live Free, but it ain't remotely in Harder's league.

I don't know why folks dump on Bill Sadler in DIE HARDER. So what if he has no Gruber blood? The whole scene of him instructing Colm Meaney to crash his plane staright into the ground is as maniacal as it gets.

I like Sadler.

I just don't like the film being so similar to the first one. And some aspects of it. I don't like Farina or his brother. I don't like the ending (fighting on the wing of the plane against trained soldiers, love the exploding plane) and i HATE him ejecting from the plane to survive the grenades.

Why? That's a textbook McClane moment right there.

Too over the top for my taste. And the execution suffers from bad effects work. It feels too easy.

I'm a huge fan of 1 and 3. In real life i do tend to say the tagline. The reason I don't like 4 is:
-No hard to nails McClane. It just felt like watching Bruce Willis kicking some ass and quoting McClane.
-Computer hacker villain wasn't a real threat. I just felt like taking away his World of Warcraft CD and he'd start crying. Terrible writing.
-Over all cast, skewed a lil too young. Grandpa McClane meets Underworld. It didn't feel as organic as the other films.
-PG-GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING 13? Oh yeah Fox.
-I hate Die Hard 2, and I prefer my action films grounded in some sense of realism.
-One to many shout outs to previous films.

Die Harder is the first one amped up. All the main characters are still there, and they get the important things right.

With A Vengeance and Live Free are completely different animals. As different as the Roger Moore and Sean Connery Bonds. The only thing that makes 3 work at all is a tense first hour and Willis & Jackson's repartee.

I think the general feeling is that the first 3 films were memorable installments.
Live Free had loads of action and was good in a general sense but suffered badly from the stigma of being a DIE HARD movie.

Our expectations were high. DIE HARD was one of the All time Action classics and this fourth installment seemed below the par somehow.

Like Molt, I thought it was fine though. Maybe not as a DIE HARd movie but in a general Action movie sense. I've certainly seen worse.

Yeah, that's pretty much the most diabolical act of all four movies. You could hear a pin drop in the theater during that sequence. Col. Stuart was not fucking around.

No, Sadler wasn't Rickman, but he was miles better than both Jeremy Irons and Olyphant.

In terms of body count, Sadler owns them all.

"We've got you."

Sadler is the shit. In my opinion Olyphant is the only weak link in the villain chain. And that's coming from a guy that loves and misses the Olyphant from Deadwood. If only he could have brought that seething Bullock rage to the Gabriel role.

With that rationale most action movies could be Die Hards. Maybe it's just something that you feel. I just didn't feel that #4 was a part of the series.

Fact: This is a fun movie.

Opinion: I enjoyed this enough in the theater, but like many others felt it missed the "Die Hard" mark. However, after re-visiting a few times now on cable, it feel better. The McClane character is there. He's older, and a little more grizzled, but he still quips with the bad guys and expresses his own fears and doubts aloud. They pepper the dialogue with several callbacks to the first three films, too. Yes, I really wish it had been R from the start, and yes the truck vs. jet was a stretch, but I don't see what all the complaints are about. After the original DH, the series has taken quite a few liberties in the character and action department. Some of the people who claim it's rubbish might want to give it a second viewing now that it's readily available [ie. every hour or so on the movie channels].

Fact: Maggie Q is goddamn hot.

I found the callbacks to the old movies apalling.

Johnson: "My names Agent Johnson!"

McClane: "Agent Johnson, eh?"

*dead 1 minute later*

Hi. Name's Richard. I'm the guy who likes With a Vengeance more than Die Harder.

Die Harder plays to me like a parody of Die Hard. Everything is bigger, louder and trying too hard to be bigger and louder. It's an okay film, but I rarely re-watch it, not nearly as often as I watch With a Vengeance, which, the tacked-on ending aside, feels more like a real Die Hard movie to me.

I haven't seen LFoDH yet. That being said, I enjoy all 3 of the 'original' DH movies for what they are.

'Die Hard' - Pretty much perfect in every way.
'Die Hard 2' - Lacks some of the fun that the original had, especially in the villain department. Sadler is very different from Rickman, altering the tone from cleverly evil to methodically evil.
'Die Hard With a Vengeance' - Brings back more of the humor of the first one, but has a terrible ending. Irons isn't enough of a presence as the bad guy.

I'm actually planning on finally seeing LFoDH this weekend. The Action Draft got me in the mood for it, I guess.

DH2 is a fun romp. Yes, very similar to the first, but it still works. Sadler was fantastic. I'm not sure why people hate it so much. Even the title, DIE HARDER sets you up from the begining to know it's all about just being bigger... (though not better). DH3 really drops the ball for me. first and foremost, it turned the lone cop against terorists into Lethal Weapon. I like McClane on his own, we already have enough buddy movies. though i understand they wanted to mix things up a bit. PLus, it was also a rehash of the first, but felt really boring. It wasn't exciting at all to me. DH4 just felt like a Van Dam movie to me...and that's why i didn't like it. DH should be smarter than that.

This may be apocryphal, but I'd heard at one point the original "Simon Says" script was in fact written to be Lethal Weapon 4. When that fell apart, they rejiggered it to be Die Hard With A V. Anyone else heard this?

I enjoyed myself with this one, but have had no desire to rewatch it. For a DIE HARD film, that says something, because I've seen the others literally dozens of times each.

How we all feel about this movie in 10 years will be interesting. Maybe I'll actually be able to overlook Kevin Smith's dumb cameo in it. Then again, we'll probably be taking about some of the ridiculous stunts that McClaine did in DIE HARD 5.

Has anyone read the original script for 'Simon Says'? I'm curious as to how that movie would have ended, as the ending for DHwaV was terrible (and the alternate ending crap was just as bad on the dvd).

Yep, it was also considered at one point to be used as a sequel to RAPID FIRE. But FOX liked the concept so much they thought it should be used for a DIE HARD sequel.

That sounds like a good comparison to me. There's a certain cartoonishness and over-the-topness that got the spotlight, upstaging McClane a bit. #3 and 4 entertain, but in a different way, and for different audiences almost. The series seemed to veer more and more into general audience territory (or newer, younger audiences). The analog to the digital. The DIRTY HARRY crowd to the MATRIX crowd. The "they don't make 'em like they use to" crowd to the "what's gramps mumblin about?" crowd. Face it, like McClane, we're just getting older.

I watched this again on HBO On Demand. It's passable. The stuntwork is the winner here. I think a lot of people's issues with disbelief may have to do with Wiseman's slick direction. It doesn't have that McTiernan camera work and on-location feel that helped ground the first three.

Willis and Long are fine together, although Olyphant might be one of the weakest action villians I've seen. Like I said, it's passable. You won't rewatch it but while it's going on, it does its job. I'm capable of keeping it seperate from the others. It's a different time for action movies. And that F-35 vs. Truck is a trip to watch half-asleep at 1 AM.

I'm still baffled about this outcome, considering I've seen him turn in some menacing performances (GIRL NEXT DOOR, etc).

You're right. He's shown he can do it. I always liked that line in one review that said he seems like a "really pissed off Starbucks manager".

Deadwood, Deadwood, Deadwood

Well, that's understood.

His problem was he seemed way too frazzled. Any little thing that went against his plan caused him to look like he needed to go #2. Gruber, Stuart, and Gruber always seemed so confident about what they were doing and that no matter what McClane did they were going to end up on top.

I guess Hans was a little perturbed when he realized the detonators were missing but you get my point.

But Olyphant at least had mad video editing skills.

It shoulda been footage from ID4 (another Fox title).

(Originally posted this in the B-Action Thread but once it was up I realized I wrote so much I should probably move it to a dedicated thread like this one.)

I like LFoDH too.

Pros:
- Bruce Willis makes the movie. His "holy shit, did that actually work" / "fuck you" glee at every bad guy he kills is very funny. I also like his "that's what makes you that guy" speech.
- Practical stuntwork. They flung a real cop car into a real suspended helicopter. Real dudes jump and fall off of real buildings. There's definitely plenty of fakery going on here (like the infamous jet sequence) but I feel like Wiseman is one of the few guys who could actually be said to have lived up to a promise to not rely on CG.
- I have quibbles with the build of the scene -- they should really have emphasized a few elements to make the moment much bigger -- but timing and action surrounding McClane's trademark line is suitably badass for my tastes.
- Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Cons:
- Timothy Olyphant is absolutely not on the level of the other Die Hard villains. He's got some good moments in there, and he's also got moments where he looks like an upset toddler on the verge of tears.
- The look. I hate the stupid color timing they do on every modern movie, so this isn't necessarily a Live Free or Die Hard-specific complaint, but fuck blue tint. Stop it god dammit. Yeah okay Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix did it and it was cool but it's really fucking boring at this point.
- The dialogue. It's not consistently terrible but whenever the movie wants to be super-dramatic it's a tad wince-worthy.
- The PG-13 (and the Unrated version). No catches or caveats, I wanted Live Free or Die Hard to be rated R. I'm 100% with everyone else on this one: the others are rated R, and John's just an R-rated guy. He fucking swears, and he shoots lots and lots of people. That said, now that the movie is made, I also say fuck trying to trick audiences into believing it isn't a PG-13 movie. The Unrated cut is a load of bullshit. Someone at Fox had Bruce dub in a "fuck!" whenever his mouth was covered and splattered digital blood in a few shots. I like some of the alternate lines in it and I wish they were in the movie, but the actual "Unrated"-ness of it is totally half-assed after the fact.

As I've presented in this thread before, the main thing that people don't like that I do about Live Free or Die Hard is that John is no longer the average man. That's a totally viable complaint, but I just think it's funny that in the 1980s, you had Arnold and Seagal and Sly taking out armies of fucking people while bullets bounced off their muscles, and then you had the everyman, John McClane, shoeless and barely pulling through. Today, every action hero is a sensitive "real man" who can kick ass but has a fucking complex about it and would rather run off with true love, and John's the Terminator. I think it's a fun movie and I enjoy revisiting it every once in awhile, even if I don't hit it up as much as the originals.

As for those originals: The first is obviously the best. Hits the hardest, feels the most dangerous, and has the best villain. No contest. The second is a schizophrenic experience for me, because it's a complete and total shitty sequel rip-off the original, but Harlin puts it together pretty well for what it is, I guess. The third one would probably be my favorite of the sequels if it didn't seriously blow all of its goodwill with the shitty ending in Canada.