24: The Movie, aka, Live Free or Die Hard

In 1988, Die Hard changed action movies forever. The intensity, scale, and pace were pushed to such extremes that the slogan "it will blow you through the back of the theater", which had seemed silly prior to viewing, turned out to be an accurate description of how it felt leaving the theater. It raised the bar for action movies, and 19 years later, it feels like we've seen it all.

Enter Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth entry in the franchise. The comparison to the original is inevitable, as is the result. No, it is not as good as the first one, nor should anyone have expected it to be. It is however, a worthy sequel, and the twelve year interval since the third one is no cause for worry; Bruce Willis is still John McClain. He's a little grimmer this time out, but he still jokes around while kicking bad guy butt.

So now that that's out of the way, what can be said about this movie without yoking it to the past? For one thing, I couldn't escape the feeling that if we were to swap out Bruce Willis for Keifer Sutherland, we would be watching 24. It had the same kind of bad guy, the same high tech toys for both criminals and the law, the same terrible plot with unimaginable consequnces, even the same kinds of sets. The only thing different was the fact that John McClain's funny.

Unfortunately though, funny in movies depends, at least to some degree, on the writing. Not that there weren't laugh out loud moments, but Mark Bomback's script seemed weak at times. Some jokes fizzled, some cowboy-talk seemed cliched, and unfortunately, Die Hard movies are great in part because of McClain's personality. Without strong dialogue, this aspect of the movie suffers. What should have been a great scene, featuring Kevin Smith in a (speaking) role as a computer hacker named "Warlock", instead was only a good scene.

The movie's plot involves a disgruntled former government worker, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who designed a top secret electronic backup system. Feeling unappreciated (awww!!) Gabriel exploits his own system to cause a meltdown of transportation, commerce, power, etc. The first step is killing all the hackers with enough knowledge to stop the "fire-sale", as it is known. The feds get involved in time to save the life of hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long), thanks to the efforts of one John McClain. Needles to say, brain and brawn save the day.

Which brings us to the action, after all, the main reason we go to these movies. Most of it is stunning. It was reasonably well shot, but sometimes a little hyperkinetic for my taste. Were there many deeds and events that seemed highly unlikely? Yes. Did it matter? Not in the sense of not being able to suspend disbelief, but I couldn't help but feel inured after a while, and they lost some impact as a result. ("Oh, he fell off of an airplane, but he's OK! Of course he is, he's not really hurt.")

In sum, I'd say it's almost a given that if you're a fan of the franchise, you'll like this movie. And hey, if they didn't try to outdo themselves, we would be dissappointed. 4 out of 5 stars.