kept the action contained in a Washington DC airport and environs, took place all over the New York area and even into Canada. Live Free or Die Hard shatters the mold, sending our hero John McClane down to Washington, out to West Virginia, and pretty much all over the east coast. With the action wandering all over into unfamiliar territory, the audience isn t as engaged, feeling that any old plot device can be thrown in at any time.
You want to be along for the ride, but the movie keeps heading off in all directions. Still, there s much to enjoy here. left Willis McClane making a phone call to attempt reconciliation with his estranged wife Holly.
Here we find out that he failed in that attempt. Long divorced, McClane is still a lonely NYPD Detective who never received his due reward for saving the day, and he s been chasing a more mundane variety of crooks ever since. Though daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in the role originated by Taylor Fry in 1988) is attending university nearby, she wants nothing to do with her old cop pop.
Willis performance is solid and comfortable, giving hints that McClane may have gone a little crazy after all he s been through, and he almost relishes a chance to dive into danger again, becoming much more aggressive and reckless than the younger version. His attitude is mirrored by the film s suave villain Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant of ), who also feels that he is an unrewarded hero. Between them is young computer hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long, giving the film some extra heart with his puppy-dog eyes), a typically na ve Red Bull-guzzling Mac-slinging techno-nerd whose outlaw streak makes him a bit sympathetic toward Gabriel.
If Gabriel rewarded the programmers he employed to write hacks for the nation s toughest computer networks instead of sending assassins after them, Farrell might have joined his cause. Instead, he finds himself on the list of top hackers wanted for questioning when Gabriel and his team break into the nation s cyber-defenses, and McClane is sent to haul him in. Through McClane s heroic actions, Farrell is saved from death and ends up becoming his sidekick, relied upon to use his skills whenever he can while Gabriel s group starts to systematically shut down the country s most vital computer systems, from transportation to communication to power.
It s in this hacker theme that the movie s second fault comes into play. buys into that old thriller clich that computers are magic any character designated as possessing computer skills can control anything from a gumball machine to the moon simply by connecting their Palm Pilots via a convenient socket, clattering on the keyboard for a few seconds (these guys never use a mouse), then crying out, I m in! When Gabriel sends his girlfriend Mai Lihn (Maggie Q from ) to shut down the eastern seaboard power grid, you can be sure that she ll have no trouble connecting all her equipment and getting started.
Movie hackers never have trouble finding the right driver for their wireless keyboards or bring the wrong cable. They just open up their notebooks and you know. Another error is in the portrayal of the hacker lifestyle.
News RSS