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
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Labels: Bruce Willis, Die Hard, Reviews
Continue reading Review: Live Free Or Die HardSaturday, March 03, 2007
The Weekend Image Depot: 3/3/07
Nothing but one sheets, one sheets, and one sheets...
Vacancy
U.S. Release: April 20, 2007
U.K. Release: June 1, 2007
Sunshine
U.S. Release: Fall 2007
U.K. Release: April 6, 2007
The Reaping
U.S. Release: April 6, 2007
U.K. Release: April 13, 2007
Year of the Dog
U.S. Release: April 13, 2007
U.K. Release: June 15, 2007
Captivity
U.S. Release: May 18, 2007 (Limited)
U.K. Release: TBA
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
U.S. Release: June 15, 2007
U.K. Release: August 10, 2007
Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0)
U.S. Release: June 29, 2007
U.K. Release: July 6, 2007
Source: IMP Awards, IMDb, filmz.ruDiscuss this and other Fakery on our message boards!
Labels: Captivity, Die Hard, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Sunshine, The Weekend Image Depot, Vacancy, Year of the Dog
Continue reading The Weekend Image Depot: 3/3/07Sunday, February 18, 2007
Trailer Park Handjob : 2/18/07
Can anyone think of a better title for this column? Seriously.
Update: There seems to be a new, full Simpsons movie trailer out, one that doesn't solely feature Homer being dumb but instead features mostly Homer being dumb with added clips of all the other characters acting out their one joke. Oh look, Mr Burns is rich and evil! Gosh. I didn't notice any gags that weren't played out about a decade ago, but you can't fault a trailer for playing up the familiar, I guess. Watch it here.
Die Hard 4.0: The new international trailer for this film seems to have a different title than the American version, which called it Live Free or Die Hard. Both are crap, so who cares? Far more important is the opening text crawl which feels a need to tell us that 'The Entire World Relies On Technology' and that 'Even Technology Can Be Taken Hostage'. The use of the word 'technology' as if it were a single, homogenous and definable thing gives us our first red light. The second comes with the suggestion that an abstract concept can be the subject of a specific action. Next thing you know we'll have a war on terror!
This is an action film aimed at 13 year olds that has the sensibility of a cranky old man, mistrusting that new-fangled 'technology' stuff that's probably all made by 'foreigners' and filled with them 'diseases' that turn you 'gay' or 'commie'.
While we wait to see if the film is entertainingly insane instead of just tediously reactionary, we can watch this new trailer which features most of the same crappy action beats as the domestic trailer and the most uninteresting shot of a building blowing up ever. This film is further guaranteed to be shit by being directed by Len Wiseman, who directed the Underworld films, which are shit. But then you all know they are shit, as you've all seen at least one of them, haven't you. Bad people.
Watch it here.
Lucky You: My ears prick up every time director Curtis Hansen's name pops up because he directed LA Confidential, a film about which no hyperbole can be too hyperbolic. Unfortunately it seems like that film (just like, say, Casablanca) was just that lucky meeting of subject and talent that raised Curtis' game way above normal. All his other films display the very professional skills of a journeyman director, taking what jobs he can get and giving them respectful if uninspired treatment.
Lucky You is his latest and it seems to be just another chick-flick full of MOR rock and neat life lessons. Does it stand a chance of being the sort of date movie us mighty titans of geek testosterone could enjoy too? Well, it stars Eric Bana (a good start) with slightly long hair (long enough to show sensitiveness, short enough to not be all scruffy. pffh.) playing a gambler (yay!) called Huck (?) who has daddy issues (oh crap) with Robert Duvall (yay!) who is also a gambler (oh come on) while trying to have a relationship with Drew Barrymore (I don't know - I think she's cute). The use of gambling as a metaphor for love and stuff leads to lessons like: 'to win in the games of life and poker, (Huck) must try to play cards the way he has been living his life and live his life the way he has been playing cards'.
I think us huge-bollocked men would probably be better off watching Paul Thomas Anderson's first film, Hard Eight, which is kind of about the same thing but good. Meanwhile I worry that the sort of people who would watch Drew Barrymore romantic films might think that it all seems a bit too complex for them.
Hope with me that Curtis makes one more classic before he retires while watching the trailer here.
Bee Season: The second trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's new film is filled with horrendously smug Hollywood-insider gags and celebrity friends who can't act, including Jerry himself, Steven Spielberg and Eddie Izzard. I love Eddie too, but he really can't act for toffee. I guess I should like this trailer just for trying to have a brain in its head but, to be honest, Hollywood knows we're all far more likely to forgive dumbness than a failed attempt at cleverness.
The film is about a bee who does stuff while being smug on account of being Jerry Seinfeld and spouting pop culture references on account of being made by Dreamworks. Also the animation style used at the end is a very uninspiring rip of Toy Story's style. Watch a bear jump off a building here.
Grindhouse: The trailer for this double bill of stupid, violent, immoral, sexually exploitative movies from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino does full justice to all those awesome adjectives I just used. The trailer says the entire thing will run two and a half hours, which means the films are going to be short, which means no space in between the sex and the violence for anything else! Yay! You could argue that, to be genuinely authentic, the first hour of these films should be incredibly dull, but you could also fuck off if you liked.
This film is actually going to be in our cinemas soon. Get dead excited here.
The Nanny Diaries: It has Scarlett Johannssen in it, but is unlikely to feature any shower scenes. Watch a trailer for a kid friendly movie while thinking about breasts here.
Underdog: Apparently this was a comic or a cartoon or something? It means nothing to me, but this trailer features a superhero that is a dog. It features a terrible joke about catching a 'cat-burgler' and kind of a funny one about 'One Nation, Under Dog', which could be a comment upon the totalitarian power structure implicit in the relationship between normal people and all-powerful super heroes, but is probably just a pun.
Watch it here.
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Labels: Bee Season, Die Hard, Grindhouse, Lucky You, The Nanny Diaries, The Simpsons, Trailer Park Handjob, Underdog
Continue reading Trailer Park Handjob : 2/18/07
