LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007) - June 29, 2007
Well, I tried lowering my expectations, but you can only lower your expectations so much. And I was actually kind of enjoying it for the first little while, though not as a Die Hard movie, of course; as a Die Hard film this is an abject failure from start to finish. But just as a contemporary action film it was actually kind of okay for about the first half or so. Nothing special, but watchable and mostly entertaining. But then the action scenes just got progressively sillier and more over-the-top, until by the end it may as well have been Bugs Bunny or Woody Woodpecker facing off against the harrier jet. It almost reminded me of the intentionally overblown conclusion of Hot Fuzz, only I'm pretty sure this wasn't supposed to be parody. It didn't help that the film was PG-13, and thus neutered of almost all its violence and swearing. Even the usually reliable Timothy Olyphant made for an awful villain, though it wasn't really his fault; the character just never seemed like any type of a threat to John McClane. I could continue down this laundry list of complaints, but really, what's the point? This just didn't feel like a Die Hard movie. And even taken on its own, it still kind of sucked. **
No comments:
Post a Comment