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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Review: Live Free Or Die Hard

By Neal Schreier

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There is an increasingly pervasive trend among today’s film reviewers to compare summer blockbusters to video games. I can understand why; the video game is the latest media movement to explode into a multi-billion dollar industry that is no longer strictly a territory belonging to the 10-16 year old demographic. Your six year old plays, your wife plays, even your grandfather plays. Everyone knows what the stereotypical “video game” entails: non-stop action, loud noises, explosions, an almost non-existent plot, and cheesy dialogue.

For the reviewer, or anyone else for that matter, this provides a somewhat lazy but efficient way of getting across to others that the film recently witnessed was an eardrum destroying, obnoxious, CGI-laden crapfest with no story to speak of. This new label is not always a fair description; a lot of movies in the summer blockbuster category have always been overly bombastic spectacles, long before video games faded into the public consciousness. I wouldn’t say that the filmmakers of today’s blockbusters are necessarily trying to emulate a game, but their movies instead are just trying to out-perform the spectacles that came before them, with an increasing array of toys and tools to do the job, which more and more, are the same powerful tools game developers are using. In other words, I don’t think the rise of the gaming industry is driving the ever-expanding absurdity of the summer event pictures yet--but it’s getting there.

In the case of Live Free or Die Hard, however, the “video game” label is completely justified. This movie, I shit you not, has Boss Battles. At least four of them. Like a typical platform shooter, Die Hard 4 features five stages of punishing action for our hero, punctuated by a an end-stage no-holds-barred fight with a Big Bad Guy, or in one case, Girl. The entire structure of this movie is based on Metal Slug and/or Rush’n Attack. Will he jump at the right moment? Will his life-meter reach 0? Will he run out of bullets? I think you already know the answer to that one.

Speaking of life-meters, McClane’s seems to be infinite. This is not the John McClane we know and love from the original Die Hard. He was a regular guy in a bad situation back then, taking some hits, barely surviving, but accomplishing nothing too spectacular to make us think he’s a superhero. But somebody decided to cheat, because he’s in God Mode now, and has been since Die Hard 2. The man has lived through the most ridiculous of situations over the course of three movies. This latest installment takes these odds to a whole new level of preposterousness. Len Wiseman doesn’t want you to merely suspend your disbelief; he wants you to staple it to the damn ceiling.

There is, however, a piece of the old McClane that remains. He still talks to himself under stress, laughs maniacally, gleefully renders out skull-crushing pain, and retains that strange misogynistic streak. But the vulnerable side of him is gone. There is never a question, no matter how high the stakes, no matter how explosive the situation, that John “Yippy-Kiyay-MUTHAFFF--” McClane will come out on top with merely another bruise or two. I don’t care how much bloody make-up you splatter on that shiny cue ball of his, or how many times he holds his shoulder and grits his teeth in pain, it’s not going to make me think “gee, I wonder if he’ll get through this alive?”

Therein lies the rub. About halfway through this film (Stage 3 if you’re counting) the boredom sets in. When you realize that there is no real danger, neither for McClane nor his sidekick, nor his daughter, the excitement evaporates. Even at the point when it’s MCCLANE vs. FIGHTER JET (the 4th Stage Boss… I think), you know who’s gonna win that showdown. This realization may come sooner for others. There are a myriad of moments where you have to make a choice: can you keep going along with the outrageousness, or say fuck off to the whole thing? After Stage 4, I think ran out of quarters. I stared at the screen in a disconnected haze through the last fifteen minutes. Honestly, once you see a semi and a fighter jet face off (and get ready, that showdown is coming again in a week, in a more interesting way, I reckon), guys popping caps at each other just can’t compete. In the end, this movie is simply a concussive bore. Maybe there was a message about America somewhere in there, perhaps there was some commentary about the tough guys of the 80’s vs. the whiny, squishy man-children of the 21st century. Frankly, I can’t be bothered to dredge through the lazy, techno-garbled script for such subtleties.

A final note -- this is not a PG-13 film. It is R, through and through. I don’t know who was paid off to ensure a PG-13 rating, but somebody had to have been. Live Free or Die Hard clearly illustrates the complete bankruptcy of the MPAA ratings system. The blood flows freely and the death is dealt spectacularly; only the nudity and cursing are restrained, however unfortunate. Even the quintessential McClane tagline is clipped before it gets naughty. Really, why even bother? I tell you what, don’t bother, stay home and play with your Wii instead.

4.5 out of 10