mercredi 27 février 2013

Live Free or Die Hard — Bad guys bringing down the US through hacking — 7*/10

Live Free or Die Hard is the fourth installment of the franchise and the first of the revival. It is easily the best one since the original Die Hard. This time, however, the threat is much more global.

You can see Bruce Willis come back as John McClane. He's still making jokes, playing the hero and recalling past episodes, but now, he's a little grumpier, and somewhat less enthusiastic about his life. With him, is Justin Long who plays a quite funny hacker, and Kevin Smith who cameos as an other hacker. Those three are definitively the best actors of the bunch. Opposite them is Timothy Oliphant who does a pretty good job in the role of the main bad guy, and the very sexy, especially in her FBI body armor, Maggie Q as the martial art babe. The rest of the cast delivers a acceptable performance, if little better.

The score has some nice rhythm, the camera shots are good, the editing tight, the action big, and the story very interesting.

However, there are some large logical flaws in the scenario as is always the case when it comes to computers. Usually, that's not much of a problem for most audience members. Also, there's that weird projection screen car ride that's badly done for our time, and the inconsistent reactions from the daughter. Finally, some of the stunts are way beyond human capacity, which wasn't so much a problem in the first episode.

Excellent entertainment.

7*/10