The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Review: Live Free Or Die Hard

By Neal Schreier

Press START to continue.

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

Discuss this and other Fakery on our message boards!

Labels: Bruce Willis, Die Hard, Reviews

Continue reading Review: Live Free Or Die Hard

Posted by George Merchan @ 4:44 PM :: (0) comments

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Impeach Now!

So Bruce Willis is posting on the AICN Talkbacks about his upcoming movie, Die Hard 4, following Sylvester Stallone’s possibly successful stint of Q&A’s to publicize Rocky Balboa. Good for him, but what interests me here, rather than the relative value of, or deceptions involved in, ‘reaching out to the fans’, is his rubbishing of his older movies.

Die Hard 2 (and I’m afraid getting an exact quote would involve trawling AICN, which you are welcome to do for yourselves) comes in for criticism for being too jokey and too self-referential without the right sense of claustrophobia.

I first came across this phenomena, strangely enough, with Stallone who, while publicizing Daylight, rubbished Judge Dredd, saying that the serious approach taken was a big mistake, albeit one pushed through by the director. But I remembered him being so proud of the movie when it came out – did that mean he was lying? A rather inauspicious way for me to learn how the world works, but whatever gets you there, right?

I was tickled by the parallels with the hoops a lot of the current US administration (and chums) are having to jump through to avoid being fired or, possibly, impeached. Paul Wolfowitz is the man currently doing the jumping (last week it was Alberto Gonzalez. Next week who knows? You have to keep on your toes with this lot) to defend his blatant nepotism regarding a girlfriend.

The moves are absolute enthusiasm and ‘heckuvajob’ positivity, followed by aggressive stonewalling, followed by the passively phrased ‘mistakes were made’ rhetoric which admits to everything, but dodges actual personal blame. Each stage is only brought about by the continued partisan hectoring of journalists/politicians/bloggers who have an axe to grind and the actual facts on their side. I don’t think we’ve yet got to the point where anyone has had to take on the position of the ‘taking it like a man’ admission of wrong-doing, but we can hope.

I don’t think it’s all that useful to start saying politics has been reduced to showbusiness as, despite what the right-wing punditry will say after every school shooting, showbusiness doesn’t lead to thousands of people dying.

However, I will call for showbusiness to be more like politics. It may be only the movies, but the famous statistic that I can’t quite remember about more votes being cast for Pop Idol than for the presidential elections suggests that this stuff is really important to people, whether we like it or not.

Because I’m sure Stallone knew that Judge Dredd was cobblers while he was making it, just as I’m sure Bruce Willis knew Die Hard 2 was a bit duff even while he was singing its praises on the publicity round. The question is: what does he know about Die Hard 4 that we do not?

We are being lied to, and questions must be asked. Pressure must be brought to bear so that the people responsible for the summer season are put up against a public committee on Labour Day and forced to say ‘mistakes were made’. The people demand it.

I know these films are mostly harmless, but they’re also mostly awful and they are a large part of our movie culture. Until we have the power to change it (or the power crisis turns the projectors off) it’s the only one we’ve got so we might as well try and enjoy it anyway we can. Fuck knows, it’s impossible to enjoy the movies themselves.