Live Free or Die Hard Movie Review

Rating: PG-13 for brief graphic nudity

Cast: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long

Director: Len Wiseman

Genre: Action 

Violence: Extreme

Profanity: Lots

Sex/Nudity: Moderate

Recommended for: dads and boys

Age Groups: 14 years and above

Running Time: 130 minutes

Release Date: June 27th 2007

Action dads have been waiting almost 12 years since the last sequel in the Die Hard series. And we’re glad to report that the wait was worth it. It’s the first movie of the series not to get an R rating. Dads taking their teens out for the weekend can hope to generate good reviews for their pick of the week.

Live Free or Die Hard has NYPD legend John McClane (Bruce Willis) saving the world again, and this time the villains get personal! One of the movie’s opening sequences has a poignant campus scene depicting the detective’s estrangement with his daughter, immediately after he is plunged into the center of a plot to destroy the planet through a global computer shutdown.

McClane has to protect a hacker (Justin Long), wanted by the FBI for crimes he is unaware of committing. The bad guy is a tech genius (played chillingly well by Timothy Olyphant) and he’s shutting the country’s communications network down, one circuit at the time. Matt has to help McClane decode the villain’s project while being attacked by Gabriel’s thugs at every turn. McClane uses everything including the kitchen sink to fight these nasties in action sequences involving cars, fire hydrants, helicopters, and fighter jets.

The baddies get hold of McClane’s daughter (the ‘personal’ bit) and that’s where the pacing shifts into over-drive. The action is explosive, the intensity unbelievable, the dialogue right-in-your face, and the story compellingly updated for the new millennium.

Younger kids (12 and below) should be kept away from the film because there is violence, gore, and mayhem galore. Dads also need to watch out for the lewd sexual sequence between a vamp and an under-aged kid. The language is colorful, including uses of “jerk-off,” “dick,” “screw up,” “damn,” “s–t,” “ass,” “a–hole,” “bitch,” “hell,” and “son of a bitch.”

All said and done, the sequel keeps true to the original’s bluster and bang, and depicts its uncompromising action hero in retro smash-mouth style. It’s the kind of movie dads and sons can sneak off to at the mall, leaving mom and sis to their timid, mundane chores.

Yippekayea!