It turns out that a pretty good way to spend a blistering hot Fourth of July is in a movie theater, watching Bruce Willis attempting to foil a cyber-attack on the US during the Fourth of July weekend. Live Free or Die Hard is actually the first of the (now) four movies in this series that I’ve seen in the theater, and it was pretty much worth it.
The plot involves tech wizards and computer hackers, led by a very disgruntled ex-government employee, who launch a three-pronged attack on the country’s infrastructure. Most of the hackers who contributed code to the project didn’t know what it was being used for, and were rewarded for their efforts by being murdered. Willis’ John McClane gets drawn in when he is asked to bring one of the hackers, Matthew Farrell (Justin Long, the “Mac” guy from Apple’s Mac/PC commercials), in to the FBI, and shows up just in time to thwart an attempt to kill him. Chasing the trail from New Jersey to Washington DC to West Virginia to Baltimore and back to the DC suburbs involves a lot more carnage and general destruction, the kidnapping of McClane’s college-age daughter Lucy, and a great inside-joke cameo by Kevin Smith as Warlock, a “Jedi wizard” super-geek hacker.
I’ve always liked the way Bruce Willis looks like he’s been through hell and back in the Die Hard movies, and he’s still got that in this one, as well as a way with a wisecrack. I’m not sure a movie with a body count like this one has should actually be as much fun as this is. And these movies are definitely appropriately named – you can maim this guy forty different ways, but it’s pretty damn hard to kill him.
Prior to this movie’s opening last week, there was a lot of online debate over who was tougher, John McClane or Jack Bauer…and even being as much of a 24 fan as I am, I’m finding myself on the “McClane would kick Jack’s ass” side, and at least he’d make some jokes and smile occasionally while doing it.
