McClane s story is a little too reminiscent of Bruce Willis prior , in which a small town cop is caught up in a transportation situation far larger than he expected. Those who believe Willis is too old to be taking on the McClane role are far off base. Even at 52, there s no question he fits right in.
Tasked with moving a computer hacker (Justin Long) to custody, Willis is suddenly entrenched in a plot to, literally, bankrupt America. The cyber-terrorism concept is eerily plausible, and it s a shame there are so few shots of the country in a state of panic. The ones included are wonderfully handled.
Of course, even with the entire government attempting to stop this plot, it s the small New York detective and trusty unwilling sidekick hacker who manage to outwit them all. McClane surviving multiple barrages of gunfire is acceptable. A few close calls for the sake of drama are necessary and fun.
What s not acceptable is McClane surviving a fall from an exploding jet, an entire bridge collapsing on top of him, a deep fall from a window, multiple shattering glass frames, a leap from a car easily hitting 60 on the speedometer, a semi truck smashing into a ridiculously durable wall behind him, missile attacks, a car falling down an elevator shaft, and of course the countless explosions that never seem to be moving fast enough to catch up. Yes, the series has always been overdone fun. However, there s always a baseline for the audience to suspend their disbelief.
Anyone one of those above miracles would have been placed just fine. All of them in the same movie comes off as a sad attempt at one-upping all other action movies since back in 1995. You re not focusing on the intensity of the action or the special effects.
You re marveling at how durable a single guy can be. The action sequences are stunning, with blistering and flat-out flawless special effects almost the entire way through. Simply put, you will never see a fighter jet miss such a massive target so blatantly again with results like this.
It s unquestionably something to see in terms of film visuals. This just doesn t fit in with the series and doesn t even remotely make an effort to stay in the same mildly believable realm of the first three. This is all about overdoing it for the sake overdoing it.
It s jarring to see McClane take a massive fall, limp away with blood pouring from his head, and a few short minutes later start running down a street like the previous injuries have never occurred. It takes away from the enjoyable script work on the American attack. At the least, you can laugh all the way through, as the witty one-liners are constant.
Kevin Smith s small role as a fellow hacker leads to some of the most enjoyable sequences to be had here. Other characters, particularly McClane s daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are simply lost for a significant part of the film. After the opening scene, she disappears until a few minutes before the finale is set off.
Her presence is wasted, in terms of her performance and usefulness to the plot. Timothy Olyphant leads the villains, though he never quite reaches the cold hearted status of Alan Rickman in the original even though the scale of his insanity is unparalleled for this series. It s odd to see how far the series has come.
The original s closed office building scenario was contained, the second opened things up to an airport, the third took most of New York with it, while this fourth entry tackles the entire country. We re only one step away from Willis becoming an astronaut to save the world from some giant asteroid err, we ve done that. Of course, given the amount of logic in , that wouldn t be much of a stretch.
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