Summertime may have officially arrived five days ago, but everyone knows it's not bona fide until an action movie that kicks major tushie hits the screens. And Live Free or Die Hard -- the latest installment of what by rights should be the creakiest adventure franchise in Hollywood -- does the honors with gritty, more-is-more abandon. At a time when the action genre has come to be dominated by sleek, matte surfaces and set-'em-and-forget-'em computerized effects, Live Free or Die Hard seeks to remind viewers of the simple, nostalgic pleasures of watching stuff get blown up and bad guys get smoked.
And oh, how they blow up and get smoked, albeit in the course of yet another numbing two-hour-plus running time. As "Live Free or Die Hard" opens, it looks like it's going to be one of those "Matrix"-y odes to technology and Zen battle, with an unpromising montage of jittery computer screen close-ups and attractive young people wearing headsets and typing. Simply smashing: An airborne patrol car demolishes a helicopter in the fourth chapter of the series starring Bruce Willis, this time as a geezer up against some evil geeks.
Summertime may have officially arrived five days ago, but everyone knows it's not bona fide until an action movie that kicks major tushie hits the screens.
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