About half was through this movie, right after Bruce Willis' John McClane character drives an SUV he somehow got inside the building through a wall and directly into Maggie Q's character, I leaned over to my wife and told her:
"I love this movie."
Die Hard won out over Ratatouille this week. Jen's 10 year old niece is set to come in next week so we decided to maybe go see it with her. That way all the parents won't look at us funny, paranoid that we were going to steal their children.
I wouldn't call this the best Die Hard yet. But it is definitely better than Die Hard 2 and almost on par with the others, in my opinion.
Don't be fooled. The plot doesn't really seem that exciting. It involves a group of cyber-terrorists. But it is majorly action packed and moves at a breakneck pace.
I was worried about the number of the stunts I saw in the trailer. It seemed that they were going for the wow factor and usually when that happens, the story suffers.
That wasn't the case here. While I'll admit that some of the stunts approached "over the top", most of the stunts came from what John McClane does best---adapting to difficult situations to try and overcome them.
That is a Die Hard staple. There are a lot of them in the movie: McClane talking to himself about why he's in the mess he's in, the sarcastic quips, the stakes being raise progessively higher and higher, etc.
The plot requires a lot of suspension of disbelief but moves so fast that you don't have time to think about it all that much. I even liked Len Wiseman's direction in it. He won me over with won spectacular overhead scene of Washington, DC right after the bad guys took over the traffic control system. As the shot progressed from street corner to street corner, we moved from car accident to car accident. I thought that was great.
I also thought the acting was good all around. And the writing wasn't exactly flashy but let you know exactly what you needed to know when you needed to know it.
For an opposing opinion on the movie, click here.
The trailers:
- Hitman: You know, this is one of the few video game movies where I actually played the original video game. The trailer was kinda eh for me. More style over substance and just try to figure out the plot from the teaser. I didn't recognize Olyphant as the lead. I only figured that out after looking on IMDB.
- The Kingdom: I'm glad that we have become so desensitized to the situation in the Middle East that we can make cheesy "rescue" movies about it. The movie has a pretty good cast in it, two Oscar winners in it even, but it also has Michael Mann involved in it. He's only producing it but his fingerprints are all over the look of the film. Worst line of dialog in the trailer? "If we find these men that kidnapped your man, I do not want to ask them one question. Do you understand?" Actually, I do but that doesn't make the line any better.
- The Game Plan: You know, I thought Arnold and Vin Diesel had a few more action movies under their belt before they made their first kid-friendly comedy. I guess "The Rock" is on a different schedule. I always though he was a pretty darn good actor considering that he came from wrestling. And the movie looks cute.
- Superbad: Same trailer as I've seen several times before. I wish the cut together a different one just to see more of the movie.
- The Heartbreak Kid: I wonder how many people in the theater realized this was a remake. Probably not many. When I saw the premise for the original--a man finds the love of his life when on his honeymoon--I was wondering how that would work. This trailer sells it and makes it believable. I just want to say the sight of Ben Stiller with graying hair really depresses me.
- The Simpsons Movie: I'm of a mind that even a "bad" Simpsons is better than 90% of all the other entertainment out there. I just wish I knew how they are going to make this movie more than just a extra long version of the TV show. Not that that's a bad thing. Just that I would expect a little more.
I liked DIE HARD but thought it was let down by a weakly written villain. This guy's motivation amounts to nothing more than a big tempertantrum.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see more of SUPERBAD, go to the film's website and check out the red band trailer there.
I was okay with the villain. I thought that they gave me enough that what he did made sense. His arrogance that was evident in some scenes was enough to satisfy me. But then again, I'm easy.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to check out that site for a while. Maybe tomorrow.