Die Hard 4.0

Right, let's get through this review without saying "yippee kay-ay motherfucker!". Fuck and bugger. Oh well, now that that's out of the way onward and upward.

John McClaine, he's like that tough bastard frae your local. You know the one, he sits in the corner with a face that looks like fizz and it's pretty clear that his head would break a baseball bat if you attacked him with one. If you tried to glass him he'd probably eat the glass. Well replace the glass with a fighter plane and you've got an idea how hard McClaine is. Just give him a huge truck and a bridge and he'll take it out nae bother.

Let's be honest, this could have been utter baws. Bruce returning to his one bankable franchise after twelve years and adding in a junior sidekick, a daughter in peril and a ton of 24-ish techno babble could have been a recipe for disaster, especially when you add in the fact that Bruce ain't young enough for Demi anymore. The fact that it isn't is maybe the greatest surprise of the summer. The fourth Die Hard's the fuckin' nuts!

Bruce is still the man, no matter what age he is. He could show most of today's action heroes a thing or two, although not Matt Damon as Bourne, he's just as much the man as Bruce as McClaine is. Thankfully everyone involved seems to have realised this and as such "get" what the Die Hard films are all about. John McClaine's your average workaday hero, thrust into situations he little understands but ultimately gets the better of because he has to. He has to be the hero. That's what made him different from all the other eighties action flick heroes. He was never the hero by choice. That and he wasn't some musclebound dolt able to take out the entire Soviet Union with only the gun turret from a passing helicopter he's just brought down with his teeth. Through the way Bruce played him he was emotional, cared about the plight of those he was trying to save and could be identified with by any normal person watching the Die Hard films. His enemies were always smarter, better organised and better fighters. Because of that McClaine would get the shit kicked out of him, and he'd bleed. He was up against it, but somehow proved to be invincible in the end, overcoming those smarmy bastards with sheer pluck.

It's those characteristics that remain in Die Hard 4.0 even with all the modern improvements. To move McClaine along with the times he has to deal with cyber terrorism this time round. He also has the young computer geek for a sidekick. The fact that neither of these is a bad thing is more down to McClaine than the thing themselves. The plotline certainly is one of those frightening "it could really happen 'cos of all the computers" types, but by adding in a cynical old bastard that doesn't understand any of it and sets out to simply batter the baddie makes it all pretty fun. As for the sidekick, what could have been a hackneyed replacement of Samuel L. Jackson's angry black racist turns into a great sparring partner for McClaine purely because they are polar opposites.

This attempt to update while playing up to McClaine's character also proves to be at the centre of 4.0's shortcomings. Obviously the set-pieces are more spectacular than ever to the point that the whole McClaine gets through thanks to instinct and an uncanny ability not to die no matter what is thrown at him becomes just a tad ridiculous. See the aforementioned fighter jet, heavy truck, collapsing bridge sequence for a perfect example. Also by having a cyber terrorism plot the baddies are all geeks, apart from the now stock shaggable bird that can kick McClaine's arse till he uses a 4x4 to take her out character. As good an actor as Timothy Olyphant is at the end of the day he's playing a techy geek, who might be smarter than McClaine but could never take him in a fist fight. Sure neither could Hans from the original film but he was as intriguing a character as McClaine, especially played with such hammy relish by Alan Rickman. Sadly Olyphant's Gabriel is more along the lines of Die Harder's villain, Col. Stuart, just not fun enough to get a kick out of. And Stuart could batter McClaine.

So the baddie's a bit forgettable and it's a tad over the top, plus there's no white vest, but apart from those slight missteps Die Hard 4.0's a worthy installment in what must be the finest series of action films ever. And Bruce still rocks the shit, as his young sidekick might say, but he most certainly wouldn't.