Live Free or Die Hard

Nothing you see here regarding computers and/or telecommunications is real, it’s all bullshit. Everything you see concerning the ability of a human body to recover, or even survive, after impacting the ground at 90 miles per hour or being hit by a speeding car or jumping out of a car travelling at 70 miles per hour is bullshit. (Did you know that landing on the roof of a car after falling from a helicopter or a six-story building is just like landing on a feather bed? I didn’t. That’s because it would break every bone in your body and split your head open like a watermelon.) Absolutely everything you see here concerning the power grid and natural gas distribution system is laughable, ludicrous bullshit. (Did you know that shutting down the electricity to an area makes a thumping sound, when viewed from miles away? I didn’t. That’s because it doesn’t, as anyone who’s ever been in a power failure knows.) Everything you see about the probability of 10,000 bullets from 40 machine guns flying within inches of a human body (that of our hero, John McClane), and never hitting him, is bullshit.
So, I hear you say, What’s new? And you’re right, of course. This movie breaks no new ground in violating the laws of physics, because there’s very little new ground to be broken, we’ve seen it all 1000 times and we either dig it (pathetic fan boys), have learned to accept it (most of the rest of us), or don’t watch this kind of movie anymore (Lee, and anyone else with a lick of sense). I have learned to accept it, some of the time, at least, and can have fun … and in fact I did, for about the first hour and a half. Then it moves into realms of physical impossibility at which one can only laugh. The saving grace here is Bruce Willis as the long-suffering (and, oh, how he suffers!), eternally complaining, wisecracking John McClane, who is by now resigned to having shitstorms descend on his head about once a year. It worked very well in the brilliant original, Die Hard, and middling well in the sequel. (You know, I’m sure I saw the third one, Die Hard With a Vengeance, but I can’t remember one thing about it.) But this sort of tripe makes me all the more appreciative of the very rare action thriller that doesn’t insult my intelligence too often, like the Bourne franchise, the Italian Job movies, and one-offs like Ronin. If we get one movie like those per year, it’s a damn good year.