FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

John McClane is hired to escort a hacker to Washington DC for interrogation in regards to a breach of the FBI’s computer system. It appears this college kid has aided a major operation that is ultimately designed to implement what’s called a “fire sale.” This act of cyber terrorism would shut down the United States by disrupting and taking over the computer systems that handle transportation, utilities and financial institutions. Gabriel, the mastermind behind this scheme has everything going his way. That is, until John McClane enters the picture. Determined to keep the New York cop at bay, Gabriel finds and kidnaps John’s daughter and threatens to kill her if he doesn’t leave well enough alone. It looks like someone doesn’t know McClane very well.

He may not, but we do. Sure, he may have less and less hair each time we see him, but he’s still capable of pulling out all the stops when it comes to the action. However, the way he accomplishes things is a little different this time around. It’s on a grander scale. Instead of figuring out if there’s something in the room he can shoot to debilitate his enemy, he ramps cars up to collide with helicopters. So, it’s still the measure of improvisation we’re used to seeing, just with bigger booms. And you know what? That’s okay, because the action is real. I don’t mean that it could happen in real life, but rather that I didn’t really notice any stupid CG effects “enhancing” anything. The vehicle impacts look like real vehicle impacts, the explosions look like real explosions. That level of realism is extremely important in selling the thrills and excitement of the movie. That’s how you really enhance the action.

It’s also great to see a bunch of real world action in a movie that’s essentially about cyber terrorism. Yeah, there are a couple of hacking sequences, but writer Mark Bomback was smart enough to make sure they took place during great one-on-one fight scenes so we wouldn’t get bored. Oh, and Bruce Willis (back as the now bald McClane, of course) doesn’t hack! That’s all left to the replacement Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Long (that kid from the Mac commercials, “Accepted”) who plays the punk kid being brought into the FBI. He’s also the comic relief. You really don’t need someone like that thrown into the mix, because that kind of forced partnership usually leads to some bad movies. Luckily, his character turns out to be better than I thought. Some of the stuff they say to each other actually turns out to be funny. Who knew?

But you know who actually ends up detracting from the picture? Kevin Smith. His character (some high level hacker dubbed “The Warlock”) is made worse not just by his terrible acting, but just from the simple fact that it’s him. His little cameo role pulled me right out of what was turning out to be a relatively involving storyline. It wasn’t the most captivating thing in the world, but for an action movie, it was working well enough. Then Smith comes on and turns it all into a different kind of joke.

Still, despite that, it is a pretty good movie for a fourth installment. I think some of their views on hacking were rather hypocritical (“hacking will ruin our society, but please learn to hack so you may one day save our society.” And the whole concept of building a movie around cyber terrorism seems outdated already, even in this increasingly technologically oriented society of ours. At least there’s plenty of action to compensate. And it’s good action, with a nice mix. It may be more over the top than “Die Hard” and “Die Hard With a Vengeance” (remember “Die Hard 2” is dead to me), but it’s still believable in terms of the action world and a lot of fun to watch.

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