Live Free or Die Hard
You just killed a helicopter with a car! -- I was out of taglines.
Review by Dack

Live Free or Die Hard is the latest summer sequel to hit the big screen, and in a summer of disappointments, Die Hard delivers. Live Free or Die Hard is the fourth movie in the long running Die Hard franchise. The first Die Hard is still one of the best action movies to date. The sequels however (excluding "Vengeance") never delivered as well as the first one did so many years ago. Live Free or Die hard however is a worthy follow up to the original, even surpassing it in many ways.

The movie begins fast, centering around John McClain (Bruce Willis) having to go pick up a hacker named Matt Farrell (Justin Long) for questioning. Soon however, it's up to John to protect Matt from trouble, by getting into trouble, and solving that trouble by blowing things up. Suffer no delusions -- stuff blows up in Die Hard. Helicopters, cars, buildings, you name it! If it can blow up, it will in Live Free or Die Hard. The action scenes are filmed incredibly, which adds to the experience. Looking past the action, there is a great story. Most of the movie isn't just explosions, it's story. It's great to see a no holds action film with a brain in a decade of mindless action films. Justin Long is a great addition to the film, providing great interaction with Bruce Willis. Like previous Die Hard films, there are some great one-liners flung around. Unfortunately, because FOX decided to give it a PG-13 rating, there aren't many expletives this time around. The word "Jerk Off" must be said nearly twenty times in the movie in substitution of more derogatory words, which gets a bit ridiculous. While I don't think that a movie needs to have foul language to be good, it's odd that the fourth installment would be PG-13, when the first three were rated R.

Live Free or Die Hard is a very fun two hour ride that's not brainless. It's amazing that they could resurrect a nearly twenty year old franchise, and make a great film out of it. Live Free or Die Hard is also directors Len Wiseman's best effort, after only having previously directed the underrated "Underworld" series. If you are tired of lackluster sequels, or are a big fan of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard will not disappoint.

Final Score: 4/5