Live Free or Die Hard

Let me preface this by stating that I have never seen one of the Die Hard movies... so when I watched Live Free or Die Hard I had absolutely nothing to expect... except maybe that sweet scene where a car flies into a helicopter that I'd seen in the preview.

On the surface this is a very extreme concept... computer terrorists have hacked the government and will shut down everything that controls our life... and since computers do control just about everything - that means a country-wide blackout. It sounds so extreme, but it's a movie so I'm OK with it.

I've never been a huge fan of Bruce Willis - he always seems to play a rather large douche bag in films, but this role totally suits him. He was obnoxious and self-involved but the part called for it. And seeing Justin Long working on computers wasn't totally out of the ordinary. I mean he does appear in those totally creative ads for Apple.

Now take into consideration an extreme amount of high-volume action and out of the ordinary extreme-nature and you get this movie. After talking with one of my coworkers he told me that I wouldn't have liked the movie if I'd seen the others (he said this one is rather unconnected). But as a stand-alone movie I thought it was pretty cool.

A Los Angeles Times reporter writes, "That this implausible stew works as well as it does is in part a tribute to the unlikely but enjoyable rapport that forms between old school McClane and his youthful computer-savvy companion." I'm glad that he referred to it as implausible stew and I totally agree it worked well... The combination of brawn and brains always seems to prove entertaining.

And this movie was no exception. This is one of the few franchise sequels that actually worked this summer and I'd definitely watch it again.